Giordano's

The history of the Green Mill Restaurants begins with the oldest licensed pub in St. Paul, Minn., the Green Mill Inn. Started by Myron Roth, the Green Mill Inn began as a soda fountain in the early 1930s, and it has continued as a neighborhood pub since that time. In 1975, Chris Bangs, Larry Cardoni and David Bicanich purchased the Green Mill. Within a year, using Cardoni's family recipes and some impromptu food science performed by dissecting the deep-dish carryout pizzas of 30 Chicago pizzerias, the group introduced its Chicago-style deep-dish pizza. Green Mills Restaurants has garnered more than 30 awards from food critics of publications, such as the St. Paul Pioneer Press, Minneapolis Star Tribune, Twin Cities Reader and Minneapolis St. Paul Magazine.

Davanni's Pizza & Hot Hoagies was founded in 1975. Its menu includes pizza, hoagies, calzones, lasagna, gourmet salads, desserts, chips, breadsticks, garlic cheese bread and kid's meal items. The restaurant was originally known as Pontillo's Pizzeria, an offshoot of a western New York family pizza restaurant. The company changed its name to Davanni s in 1983, which allowed it to be trademarked. Davanni s was the first to introduce authentic New York hand-pounded and hand-tossed traditional crust pizza to the Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minn., area. Two other crusts were eventually added, which includes a light, buttery deep-dish crust, in 1986, followed by a delicate thin crust, in 1994. Davanni's Pizza & Hot Hoagies is headquartered in Plymouth, Minn.