Minneapolis Dopers: Was the original Totino's restaurant any good?

Cafe Society
1

Totino’s frozen pizzas were a staple of my childhood, and even today they’re a comfort food I enjoy now and then. They’re not great pizzas, and honestly they’re on the low end of the frozen pizza food chain, but there’s nothing else quite like them - the crispy thin crust, the sweet sauce, the not-quite-enough shredded cheese that browns up just right, the salty nugget-sized bits of diced pepperoni - and for a dollar a pizza, it’s an easy dinner for one on a lazy night.

Imagine my surprise when I looked up the brand on Wikipedia and found out that it was a restaurant before it was a grocery brand;

Looking in the Web Archive I found an old PDF of their menu, and it sounds like a typical Italian family restaurant that you’d find in any part of the country. I found it interesting that the menu mentions their pizzas were square, as the frozen pizzas used to be round and only switched to being square a few years ago.

Did anyone who lives/lived in the Minneapolis era ever eat at the place in its 60-year run? If so, how was the pizza there? How did it compare to the frozen product? How was the rest of the stuff on the menu, the décor, the service, etc.?

I’d be interested in hearing about this little bit of history from anyone who was around to experience it.

2

You’re telling me Totino’s pizzas started in northeast, and closed not long before I moved here? Say it ain’t so!
Also, I learned something today.

3

Interesting, I never knew Totino’s started as a restaurant. If I squint, the picture of the pizza going into the oven in the PDF menu looks like a large, rectangular frozen Totino’s Party Pizza (light on the cheese, like Smapti described).

4

I started a thread in the Minneapolis subreddit. A lot of good replies so far.