Omaha Exploration

While researching the Caniglia family and their start of a restaurant empire, I was surprised to learn that they started a frozen pizza business long before most of the popular pizzas found in the frozen section of a supermarket today, which led me down a path of researching some of these companies. Let’s start with Tombstone Pizza.

In 1960, brothers Ron and Pep Simek opened a bar called the Tombstone Tap on Highway 64 on the eastern edge of Medford, WI. The bar was known for selling beer at a dime a glass. Its name was inspired by the fact that it was located across the street from a cemetery.

After Pep broke his leg in 1962, he was relegated to the bar’s 6’x6′ kitchen. It was there that he started to experiment with different pizza recipes as a snack for the bar’s patrons. Inspired by some of the pizza he had while on a recent trip to Chicago, he experimented with crust thickness, spices, sauces and toppings until it was to his liking. By 1966 the pizzas were so well received that other taverns wanted them. The brothers and their wives, Joan and Frances, began making them from the living quarters attached to the bar. They would end up freezing the pizzas so they could be served later.

The Simek family initially delivered the pizzas in a 1959 Cadillac but eventually took out a loan to buy a refrigerated truck. The success of Tombstone Pizza resulted in the family converting rooms at the back of the bar into a factory. They eventually outgrew the space, and the City of Medford offered an eight-acre site in the city’s industrial park. They built their first large-scale manufacturing facility in 1968.

In 1976 the company launched its own specially trained salesforce. This aligned with its first advertisement in the Omaha World-Herald looking for an aggressive salesperson to serve Omaha and Southwest Iowa. Tombstone would take the pizzas directly from the plant to designated distribution points where the sales force took over by driving them to supermarkets, convenience stores and other retail customers. This method ensured its pizzas were fresher than the other frozen pizzas on the market. In fact, it gave them control of the entire process which ensured quality pizzas and promptness.

By the 1980s Tombstone grew to a national pizza supplier using 100% real Wisconsin cheese and also made its own Canadian bacon, pepperoni and sausage. The company continued to take market share away from large corporations like Pillsbury and General Mills which offered dozens of products including pizza. From 1976-1983 Tombstone grew by 25% each year, at which point they opened an additional plant in Sussex, WI outside of Milwaukee.

A Gallup poll in 1984 ranked Tombstone as the favorite take-out food in the country. Yes, you read that right, not pizza but all takeout foods. By this point it was one of the three largest frozen pizza manufacturers in the country with sales exceeding $100M.

While the brothers received offers in the past to purchase the company, they had turned them all down until 1986. At that point, they were ready to call it quits and cash in on their success. They sold the company to Kraft with an agreement that Tombstone would operate as a freestanding unit and that all of its 1,000 employees would retain their jobs. Tombstone’s executive vice president and general manager, Dewey Sebold, took over.

In 1987 its Medford and Sussex plants were further expanded and its equipment was brought up to speed with the latest technology. In 1989 its headquarters moved to Glenview, IL. In 1990 advertising agency Foote, Cone & Belding came up with its popular slogan, “What do you want on your Tombstone?” In 2010 Kraft sold its frozen pizza division to Swiss-based Nestle foods. Included in the deal were other frozen pizza giants including DiGiorno, Jacks and California Pizza Kitchen.

The man who created the Tombstone Pizza, Pep Simek, opened a second pizzeria in Medford called Pep’s Pizza. Its frozen pizzas can be found locally at select Walmarts. In 2022 Tombstone was number six in frozen pizza sales at $57M behind DiGiorno, Red Baron, Private Label, Totino’s and Jack’s. Not bad for a pizza founded in the tiny kitchen of a bar as a way to encourage customers to drink more.

The story of Tombstone makes you wonder whether Omaha-based Caniglia’s frozen pizzas would be sitting alongside them had it not closed.

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