It's consistently listed as one of the restaurant's we miss the most here in the Med City. But did you know this restaurant is actually still around today?!?

YouTube
YouTube
loading...

I'm talking about Shakey's Pizza. Quick Country 96.5 listeners have routinely listed that restaurant numerous times whenever we've asked about a Rochester restaurant everyone loved but that isn't around anymore.

But, wait a minute-- Shakey's Pizza IS still around! And, yes, it IS the same chain that once called Rochester, as well as many other locations across the Midwest-- home. I never went to the Rochester Shakey's, but I did go to Shakey's in beautiful Rib Mountain, Wisconsin, near my hometown of Wausau when I was a kid.

According to this Post-Bulletin article, the Rochester Shakey's opened in the March of 1968 on the Highway-52 frontage road near the 19th Street overpass. It was one of 342 Shakey's Pizza restaurants operating at that time, and was, according to the article, Rochester's first real pizza place.

The story says it closed when MnDOT began to rework sections of the Highway-52 frontage road, and the owners didn't want to relocate the business. That location is now just a vacant plot of land (which MnDOT is still trying to resell.)

But, if you check THIS website, you'll see the Shakey's Pizza chain is still very much around! That's the good news. The bad news is that the closest Shakey's location to Rochester is... almost 1,100 miles away in Auburn, Alabama.

The Shakey's site also lists several locations in California, Washington state, and Mexico. Roadtrip, anybody?

Listen to Curt St. John from 6 to 10 a.m. on Quick Country 96.5
and from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on 103.9 The Doc

More From 106.9 KROC-FM