About Giovanni’s
Thor & Kimm Thorson moved to Brainerd, MN in 1987 to open a Giovanni’s Pizza restaurant at 625 Oak Street. Over the next seven years, they built a booming business in Brainerd and surrounding areas until tragedy struck in the form of a fire that completely destroyed everything.
Determined to keep jobs for their employees and award-winning pizzas in the homes of their terrific customers, they purchased a small USDA meat market to temporarily operate the restaurant during construction. Once re-located in the mall, they were encouraged by customers of nearby taverns and resorts to make their delicious pizzas frozen – so they could be available to customers of those businesses as well as the restaurant.
Giovanni’s Frozen Pizza was born! The year was 1994. Starting with one tavern customer, “The Spalding House” in Crosby, MN. Thor hit the road in a Nissan pickup with coolers full of frozen pizzas…..all made by hand with all the special ingredients and mounds of cheese that made the restaurant pizzas so famous. Soon we had 17 customers! WOW, then 24, then 75, 100, 200, 400,….you get the idea.
Today, Giovanni’s employs about 10 part-time and 5 full-time employees. Jerry DeChaine, plant manager, has been working with Thor and Kimm since the early days at the restaurant. Jerry made the first 30 pizzas with Thor for the Spalding House, (it took us about 2 hours to make them) and has worked his magic on the hundreds of thousands since then.
Fresh-made Giovanni’s Frozen Pizza! Today, we deliver in 7 states with direct delivery and a growing number of valuable distributors who carry our great pizzas to their best customers throughout Brainerd, Garrison, Sylvan, Crow Wing, and Baxter, MN and the Midwest.
We hope you’ll take that plunge and try one of our delicious pub, specialty, featured, or custom pizzas. Our pies are thin crust and loaded with toppings. You won’t believe it’s frozen when you buy your pizza wholesale from us!