Where wood-fired pizzas, local partnerships, and live music create unforgettable moments in the heart of Minnesota farmland in Waseca, Minnesota
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Farm-to-Table Pizza and Local Partnerships: Pleasant Grove Pizza Farm crafts unique wood-fired pizzas using fresh ingredients grown on-site and sourced from local farms, including cheese curds from Ellsworth, Wisconsin, and Minnesota creamery cheeses. Weekly features highlight regional partnerships, with local vendors often promoting their products on-site.
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A Unique Dining and Event Destination: Open May through October, the pizza farm offers a rustic, internet-free dining experience with live music, seasonal festivals, and events like seafood boils and Saturday evening markets.
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Emily Knudsen dreamed of operating a pizza farm ever since she first visited one at age 21. When she married Bill Bartz, the owner of a 50-acre hobby farm, the pair embarked on making Knudsen’s dream a reality. On May 3, Pleasant Grove Pizza Farm will open for its 11th season.
“It’s a unique dining experience,” Knudsen says, adding that since the property doesn’t have internet access, people get off their phones and enjoy in-person connections in real time.
Pies and Partnerships
Set on a 2-acre field in the middle of Minnesota farmland, the pizza farm allows guests to bring their own food and beverages, but the star of the show is the couple’s wood-fired pizza. Since neither Knudsen nor Bartz are classically trained pizza makers, they say Pleasant Grove Pizza Farm has its own style – though they liken it to a hybrid of New York and tavern pies.
“It’s quite thin, sheeted and even rolled out a little bit – but then, we do our own unique roll on the crust itself,” Knudsen says, adding that the pizza farm’s location makes it perfectly suited to partner with area farms for ingredients they don’t grow. For example, Pleasant Grove offers a stuffed-crust pizza that incorporates cheese curds from Knudsen’s hometown of Ellsworth, Wisconsin. She also sources cheese from a Minnesota creamery.
“We do weekly features so that we’re partnering with someone almost every weekend from across the region,” she adds. “We encourage them to come set up on the farm that weekend to promote their business.”
Farmers’ Bounty
On their own property, the owners grow anything that works well on pizza, including tomatoes, arugula, garlic, herbs, peppers, squash, zucchini and “tons of basil,” according to Knudsen, who adds, “A lot of the garden is geared toward featured pizzas.”
Tomatillos grow well on the property (they were planted once and have volunteered every year since), so the farm’s weekly feature might include a green, tomatillo-based sauce. Pleasant Grove also partners with a distributor for certain staples, such as flour.
Hospitality and Events
During its high season from May through October, the pizza farm welcomes guests on Fridays and Saturdays from 4 until 8 p.m. and Sundays from 1 to 7 p.m. During winter months, Pleasant Grove offers pizza pick-up and delivery to a neighboring brewery on Fridays and Saturdays from 4 until 8 p.m.
Knudsen and Bartz kick off the season with a seafood boil, and in 2025, the owners launched Stroll, a Saturday evening market geared toward women and other shoppers interested in handmade products. During the event, the pizza farm sells bellinis and kir imperial (a raspberry-sparkling wine cocktail) from a bar constructed in the garden.
The venue draws a number of visitors for the live music it hosts twice per weekend. Come fall, Pleasant Grove hosts festival to celebrate seasonal offerings such as apple cider donuts and pumpkin painting.
