North Shore's famed pizza at your grocer? Yah, sure

Did ya hear da one about Sven and Ole broadening their pizza business?

It's kinda cheesy, but ve'll tell you anyvay: Pizzas from the revered Grand Marais restaurant may soon appear in a grocer's freezer near you. No joke.

After selling frozen, take-home versions of the signature 'za at his restaurant for the past decade or so, owner Sid Backlund quietly began putting Sven & Ole's frozen pizzas into a few convenience stores along Lake Superior's North Shore recently. They sold so fast even Backlund was taken aback. About 700 pizzas were gone within 10 days — double what he had expected.

Uff da.

Undaunted, Backlund is still working with suppliers and distributers to put frozen versions of Sven & Ole's pizza into grocery and convenience stores throughout the region, including all of Minnesota, parts of Iowa and the Dakotas, Wisconsin and maybe even into Michigan. He wasn't sure of the rollout timeline.

It's the latest expansion in what Backlund described as a fun 34 years in a business that has mushroomed into a beloved destination for tourists and locals alike.

"We're selling fun almost as much as we're selling pizza," he said, recalling how he came up with the joke-invoking name for the pizza joint that he opened with his brother. The two wanted to honor their Norwegian and Swedish ancestry, he said.

But they also focused on making a worthy product starting with their mother's bread dough recipe.

"It must be fairly decent or they wouldn't come back," Backlund said.

The frozen version uses the same recipes as the restaurant; the family dough recipe made in bulk in Burnsville and special sauce made in Red Wing. The frozen pizzas are being manufactured at a facility in Siren, Wis., that has a USDA inspector on site, Backlund said.

They will offer classic varieties of cheese, pepperoni, sausage, combination and a supreme version dubbed "Uffda Zah."

At the Holiday Stationstore in Tofte, Minn., manager Brian Olsen put a couple of cases' worth in the freezer last month, and watched them sell out in hours. They have been outselling all the other pizzas he offers, he said.

"The Uffda is the one that is going really well," Olsen said, with a lot of travelers from the Twin Cities picking them up. Backlund has worked to make the frozen product taste as good as the ones they bake in Grand Marais, Olsen said: "You can tell that he's done his homework on this deal. It tastes so much like the real one at the store."

The Sven & Ole's label features the same cartoon characters that grace the restaurant's marquee, Sven clad in buffalo plaid. The characters are holding the now-ubiquitous bumper sticker that patrons get free with every hot pizza at the restaurant.

Backlund, 57, said he hopes that expanding into the frozen pizza market will help make up for slow times at the restaurant in the winter, when tourists are few in Grand Marais.

So, why are Sven and Ole going into the frozen pizza business?

They're hoping to make more dough.

Pam Louwagie • 612-673-7102