Milaca-based pizza company has cult following

A voice mail awaits the staff at Heggies Pizza's front office.

It's a bar patron from the early hours of Sunday morning, urgently seeking the correct pronunciation of the popular frozen pizza outlet. (For the record, it's "h-egg," not "h-edge.")

"We're always settling bets over the name," said Heggies business manager Naomi Warden, a nine-year employee who worked her way up from the production line.

"Sometimes you just answer the phone saying 'This is Heggies' and they'll say 'You just answered the question.' I always ask them if they won the bet."

Mystery is part of the company's business approach. Only three people know the pizza sauce recipe, the St. Cloud Times reported.

Photographs aren't allowed of the specifically engineered, cheese-filled assembly line. They do, however, offer tours, including an annual visit from Milaca school district second-graders.

Heggies president Shawn Dockter admits their business model borrows from Willy Wonka's chocolate factory -- they've even considered a golden ticket-like promotion where winners get to create their own pies.

And what started as an Anoka restaurant called Heggies, run by Don and Polly Hegedus, has developed into a cult-like following with Heggies truck drivers and other employees wearing the company's apparel regularly bear-hugged by fans. A police car once even pulled over a Heggies truck because the officer wanted to buy pizzas.

"That cult following comes from everybody always having a story that connects them to the pizza because of those small places (where) it's served," Dockter said. "When I started looking at Heggies, I started experiencing that. When I asked somebody if they had heard of Heggies, it was either they had heard of it or they hadn't. It was one extreme or the other.

"And those who had heard of it loved it."

The only specifics Heggies will reveal about the factory is the consistent method of making each pie. It's as detailed as the specific order in which the pizza is assembled.

"We've found the pizza tastes different when you put the ingredients on in a different order," Warden said. "We test different orders to find the best-tasting way."

Don and Polly, who named the restaurant after a nickname for Don's father, initially expanded their business to frozen pizza in 1989 at the request of friends who ran resorts. The first Heggies frozen pizzas were made out of an Onamia garage, which at the time was considered the smallest USDA-inspected facility in the country.

The company also took advantage of a recently scrapped Minneapolis law that required bars to account for 60 percent of their revenue via food, with alcohol sales capped at 40 percent.

According to Scott Wasserman of the Minnesota Department of Public Safety, local and state regulations control the licensing for selling and serving alcohol. Sometimes they require hot food to be served at bars.

Heggies provides and services pizza ovens for each of its bar clients.

Frozen pizza production has thrived in Minnesota. General Mills and Schwan's account for more than $1 billion in combined frozen pizza sales and claim four of the top 10 brands, according to a Twin Cities Business Magazine report. Bernatello's of Maple Lake also accounts for more than $80 million in profits annually.

"If you look at frozen pizza history in the U.S., most frozen pizza brands you see started mainly in the Midwest and a lot of them started as bar pizzas just like us," Dockter explains.

Heggies also offers popular fundraising programs. Heggies sells pizzas to nonprofit organizations at a discounted rate, and the organization then decides how much to charge.

"It's a growing segment of the company," Dockter said. "I'm a big believer in community, giving back and helping where we can."

Dockter bought the company in September 2004 when Don and Polly were looking to retire.

He studied aerospace engineering at the University of Minnesota and his office has NASA memorabilia, but he grew up working in his mother's Mitchell, South Dakota, Bonanza Steakhouse.

Dockter, who stands taller than 6-foot-5, was once hit by a Tiger Woods golf ball during the PGA Tour Championship at Hazeltine National Golf Club in Chaska -- an event he now laughs at but booed at during the time.

It was a different trip to Chaska, however, that would hook his interest in frozen pizza. At the VFW Post 1791, Dockter sampled Heggies Pizza for the first time.

"The place buzzed when the oven bell would go off and the pizza would come out," Dockter recalls.

After outgrowing its space in Onamia, Heggies moved into its current factory in March 2008. The entire Onamia factory would take up only a third of the current assembly line room.

"I'm still amazed at how many pizzas we made in the old space," Warden said.

Dockter said the company tried hard to stay in Onamia, but Milaca offered city sewer and water and had the proper acreage.

"We looked at towns and cities up and down," Dockter said. "Milaca has been fantastic. We used to joke that they must've had a secret town meeting before we came here where they all agreed to welcome us."

The current factory's break room cooks pizzas for its employees nonstop throughout the work day starting at 8:30 a.m.

The employees taste-test new products and help determine what the cult frozen pizza maker will release next.

"We've grown tremendously in many ways," Warden said. "And when I wear something with 'Heggies' on it, people can't wait to tell me what their favorite pizza is."