By Brenna Eller
McPHERSON, Kan. — Jason Halkias, an Iowa man who has become known as the Legendary Pizza Ranch Guest across the United States visited the Pizza Ranch in McPherson on Monday, July 22 on an important mission to visit all 224 locations.
“I’m up to 176 locations overall and 48 locations to go,” Halkias said.
Last year in a single day, Halkias completed the whole Sunflower State, going from south to north. He visited Pizza Ranch in Arkansas City, Anthony, Wichita, Hutchinson, Emporia, and Manhattan.
Then McPherson opened a location May of 2024, and Halkias put it on his trip as he was planning to make his way toward the locations west of the Great Plains, including North Platte, NE.
The first location Halkias visited was in Muscatine, IA in mid-2005.
What inspired Halkias to travel to every location the franchise has opened?
It was during a relationship with a woman in Cedar Rapids, IA, in 2014. Cedar Rapids was also the third Pizza Ranch he ever visited.
According to Halkias, she was a “big Pizza Ranch fanatic in her own right” who motivated him to visit more locations.
The idea to visit all of the locations didn’t come to fruition until last August after he hit 100 in Orange City, IA, (home of the company headquarters), when a friend suggested if Halkias did make it to them all, that he could then visit grand openings of new ones.
