Pizza. Yum.

Years ago there used to be a place in south Minneapolis called The Pizza Shack.

They sold pizza. They sold pizza with single crust, a double crust and a triple crust. They sold garlic bread that came in a basket with three roughly 6″ garlic-oozing and butter-dripping pieces. Of course they sold other stuff that pizza places also sell but who cares about that stuff because it was the Pizza Shack, not the Spaghetti Shack or the Chicken Shack or the Chef’s Salad Shack.

The Pizza Shack was very good.

It didn’t matter what we the group of us had done that night, or who we had done it with or how many of us there were with us, we always wound up at the “Shack” for late-night eats. And it was open on Christmas and Thanksgiving which was nice because after the wrestling matches at the old Minneapolis Auditorium on those two holidays we had a place to go eat after. We had a favorite waitress and her name was Brenda.

The restaurant was popular with the Minneapolis police force and it received national publicity in 1992 after officer Jerry Haas was murdered while he was eating in the restaurant.

After nearly 50 years the Pizza Shack closed in 2005.

There’s your backstory.

I used to have a friend and his name was Ed and Ed invented something called the “Pizza Shack Challenge“. The Shack Challenge was a large 14” triple crust pizza with pepperoni and hamburger and sausage and extra cheese. And an order of garlic bread. Vegetable substitutes like olives or mushrooms or sauerkraut were not allowed because Ed believed they were not as filling as the meat toppings and would lessen the difficulty of the challenge. A beverage was optional.

(Because I like pizza I feel it’s important to mention at this point that Canadian bacon, pineapple and sauerkraut pizza is good)

If a person failed the challenge they would be responsible for paying for the meal. If a person finished the challenge the reward was that Ed would not only pay for the meal but he would also award a cash bonus in the amount of the meal. In case you’re wondering, the cost of Ed’s Pizza Shack Challenge was $12.30 before tax and tip.

So… who wants pizza tonight?