Casey’s Pan Pizza Is Here: Square, Thick and Cheese to the Edge

By Zach Miller

Casey’s General Stores added pan pizza to its permanent menu on Wednesday, October 28, rolling it out across nearly 3,000 stores in 19 states. The new crust is square, thick and topped edge to edge, and the company says it is made with olive oil, honey, sea salt and finely milled 00 flour.

Casey’s sells far more pizza than most people realize for a gas station chain. A new crust there reaches a lot of small towns where a national pan pizza is not an option.

What Casey’s launched

According to the company announcement on October 26, the pan crust is soft and airy inside with a crisp bottom. The mozzarella goes all the way to the rim, where Casey’s says it caramelizes into a crispy cheese edge. Any pizza on the menu can be ordered on the new crust, including breakfast pizza and specialty pies like the Ultimate Meat.

Chief merchandising officer Tom Brennan described the target as “an amazingly thick, fluffy crust and crispy edges.” The company says development took nearly two years.

No source we checked lists a price for the pan crust. As a promotion, Casey’s Rewards members who bought a pan pizza on launch day earned credit for a free large one-topping pizza, redeemable October 29 through November 18.

One small discrepancy: Casey’s and Nation’s Restaurant News both specify double-zero flour, while C-Store Dive says only finely milled flour. We went with the company’s own wording.

Why a convenience chain wants pan pizza

Casey’s is a pizza business hiding inside a fuel stop. NRN reports the chain sells roughly 50 million whole-pizza equivalents a year, and that about half of its stores have no national pizza competitor in their market. Before this week, its crust lineup was original and thin.

Executive chef Andrew Kintigh told NRN that “pan pizza rounds out a strong lineup of crusts.” The rollout also follows a stretch of turbulence at Pizza Hut, the brand most Americans associate with pan pizza. Fast Company reported in October that Pizza Hut’s amended franchise filing shows 275 US closures in 2026 through mid-August, a story we have followed since the LongRange sale.

NRN describes Casey’s as likely taking market share from Pizza Hut, though that is analysts’ read rather than a company claim. Local coverage framed it simply. A Casey’s district manager told Dakota News Now, “This is probably the biggest launch since our thin crust.”

The survey behind the launch

Casey’s backed the launch with a consumer survey it commissioned from Talker Research: 5,000 US adults, 100 per state, fielded online September 23 to 29, 2026. Keep the source in mind, since a chain’s own survey tends to find demand for the chain’s new product.

The headline findings, as reported by Casey’s and repeated by NACS Daily News: one in four respondents said getting pan pizza means going out of their way or that none is available nearby. Nearly half of pan pizza eaters called it their favorite style, and more than half of all respondents said crust is their favorite part of a pizza.

The 80% figure about small towns comes from a separate internal assessment of Casey’s store locations, not from the survey.

What to watch next

Casey’s has not said whether the launch-day credit offer will repeat or whether pan crust will carry a price premium over original. Watch for pricing at your local store, and for whether Pizza Hut answers with a pan promotion of its own heading into the holiday season.