When Pizza and Tacos Came to Council Bluffs

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The Historical Society of Pottawattamie County.

When Pizza and Tacos Came to Council Bluffs.

Pizza and Tacos are as American as Council Bluffs. You suppose General Dodge ate them? How about your father? For that matter, were pizza or tacos on the school lunch menu when you were in grade school? As ubiquitous as they are today, these staples of the daily diet might not have been around town as long as you think.

Odds are you remember right where you were when you first learned of the Kennedy assassination or that Elvis had died. We likewise recall our first car and our first love. But do you remember your first pizza or taco? Probably not, but these foods weren’t all that common in the metro area until not that long ago.

Pizza in one form or another dates from ancient times but never made much of an impact in the United States until after World War II when GI’s brought back a taste for the dish from overseas. Pizza then began appearing on restaurant menus, particularly on the east coast. By the mid to late 1950s “pizza joints” started to pop up in college towns and became something of a fad for young people.

Pizza King started in the 100 block before moving to 212 West Broadway and adding “Club 212” to their name. The restaurant relocated to the new wing of the former St. Patrick’s School when their downtown location was razed for urban renewal in 1973.

The small building to the west of the Goodrich Hotel had been Porkie’s Cafe from the 1960s until 1981 before becoming home of the Pizza Man. The cafe and hotel were razed in 2008 to make way to provide a parking lot for the adjacent furniture and carpet store.

Pizza king was situated between Western Auto and the Neumayer Hotel.

The entire north side of the 200 block of West Broadway was demolished in 1973 to make way for Midlands Mall. This area of the block became Phillips Department Store, one of the mall anchor stores.

The Midwest wasn’t so quick to adopt the trend; through the 50s local teens preferred a hamburger and shake. The first Council Bluffs establishment to devote itself primarily to the new food was Pizza Pantry at 3107 West Broadway in 1959. Cookies Pizza Palace popped up a short time later at 2915 West Broadway. Pizza King brought the dish downtown in the mid 1960s. Pizza King was started by Thomas Zissos and George Kallimanis, but has been owned by the Poulos family since 1965. Pizza King was originally at 142 West Broadway, relocated a block west in 1965, then moved to the new wing of the old St. Pat’s school in 1973 after the downtown location had to make way for Midlands Mall.

Pizza was beginning to catch on but was still a niche market until the late 1960s when the national chains came to the metro area complete with expensive marketing campaigns. Shakey’s, which originated in Sacramento and in what would be considered rather insensitive today was named for the tremor of co-owner Sherwood Johnson, advertised heavily on television. Pizza Hut arrived in Council Bluffs in late 1967 with a restaurant on West Broadway and one on East Pierce the next year. Pizza Hut promoted itself to kids via radio and print ad campaigns. By the time Clinton, Iowa native William Theisen founded Godfathers in Omaha in 1973 and Council Bluffs opened its branch in 1976 pizza was a mainstream food, well on its way to becoming as American as hamburger and fries.

Lincoln based Valentino’s has made several ventures into Council Bluffs, with a restaurant in the Hy-Vee complex on Madison Avenue, 28th and West Broadway, a take-out operation on Bennett Avenue, and a couple of attempts on Madison Avenue at the city limits.

Despite the arrival of the pizza chain restaurants, Pizza King continued to grow in stature as a local icon. Indeed a photo of the restaurant on the Historical Society’s Facebook page "Council Bluffs Revealed" has drawn some of the most passionate positive comments of any post ever, many saying how it was their very first pizza and remains yet today a delicacy and a tradition.

Pizza King isn’t alone as a linger home town favorite, however. Pizza Counter opened on the South Omaha Bridge Road in 1988 with the plan of attracting picnickers and boaters that would buy a pizza on the way than pack up lunch or dinner from home. The opened a second store on East Broadway in 1993, relocating to Ogden Place in 2015. Pizza Counter remains a favorite today, and has been known to edge out the iconic Pizza King in the “best of” awards.

The entire north side of the 200 block of West Broadway was demolished in 1973 to make way for Midlands Mall. This area of the block became Phillips Department Store, one of the mall anchor stores.

Big Cheese kept the pizza tradition going at 28th and West Broadway when they moved into a building vacated by Valentino’s Pizza.

Breadeaux Pizza was available in Ogden Place when the photo was taken in 2008. In the late 1970s Minsky’s served New York style pizza at Ogden Place.

Pizza Counter started on the South Omaha Bridge road but opened a second location on East Broadway in 1993. This store moved to Ogden Place in 2015.

The small building to the west of the Goodrich Hotel had been Porkie’s Cafe from the 1960s until 1981 before becoming home of the Pizza Man. The cafe and hotel were razed in 2008 to make way to provide a parking lot for the adjacent furniture and carpet store.

One would have been hard pressed to find a taco in Council Bluffs, or even anyone who knew what one was, until the 1960s. Ricardo Correa, Jr. began making tortilla and taco shells in the back of his father’s West Broadway restaurant and expanded into his own business. In a 1963 interview he acknowledged there wasn’t all that much of a demand for his product, but explained, “Liking Mexican food is simply a matter of education. People try Mexican food once, then they crave it.” Correa created awareness for tacos by giving out free samples in grocery stores, admitting that the slightly hotter taste caused some customers to rush for the water cooler or even spit it out on the spot in surprise.

Taco House at 1604 South 11th Street became the city’s first eatery specializing in the dish. Cosmos Drive-in, which took over the Tiner’s location at 34th and West Broadway, added tacos to the menu in 1965, but they cost a quarter, significantly pricier than the fifteen cent going rate for a fast food hamburger at that time. Ricardo’s Restaurant opened at 146 West Broadway in 1960 with a menu of Mexican foods. As with pizza, the transition of the taco from ethnic to mainstream got a push from the fast food industry and its advertising. The Midwestern fast food taco business came out of Wichita. Michael Foley had never heard of a taco, but saw potential for the food when he sampled his first one in San Diego in the 1950s. He started the Taco Grande chain, which took over the short lived Taco Sierra at 2730 West Broadway in 1968. Taco Bell opened its first restaurant in Council Bluffs in 1972 on East Broadway; Taco John’s arrived at 2300 West Broadway a short time later.

Those living outside the metro area had to wait a little longer for the new cuisine to arrive. Pizza Hut aggressively expanded into the outlying towns in the 1970s, bringing not only pizza but the era of franchised restaurants to the smaller communities of southwest Iowa. The penetration of tacos lagged a bit longer.

What were uncommon foods just a generation back have become quite the norm. Americans today consume over 3 billion pizzas and almost 5 billion tacos annually.

The entire north side of the 200 block of West Broadway was demolished in 1973 to make way for Midlands Mall. This area of the block became Phillips Department Store, one of the mall anchor stores.

Ricardo’s Restaurant started in the 100 block in 1960, closed, and reopened in 1966, offering everyone a free taco for their grand reopening. The photo was taken at the Labor Day parade in 1969.