Pizza, calzones, desserts – oh my!

Rich Palzewic

Staff

May 12, 2025

SCANDINAVIA – Knowing she wanted to open some kind of eatery, Lisa Shirek, owner of Sliced Pizza Company, said once she saw the “beautiful brick building in downtown Scandinavia,” she was sold on the idea.

“(Though) I wasn’t quite sure what kind of restaurant (the building would house), I was leaning toward a pizzeria,” she said. “The building has a lot of character, so I started thinking I could bring the pizza I made for my family to a small town. Little did I know, things would take off from there.”

Shirek said the building at 305 N. Main St. is part of something called “Brick Block.”

“It was built in 1883 as a hardware store and remained a hardware store until the early 1990s, I believe,” she said. “At one time, it was also a deli. The space is really beautiful. It has big windows and I think 12- or 14-foot ceilings. When people come in, they’re surprised. They say it looks like something you’d find in Madison or Portland.”

Even before purchasing half of the building in 2019, Shirek said she had a history with the building.

“I had rented the space in 2015 for about a year for Kombucha tea,” she said. “At the time, I wanted to buy the building, but the owners were not interested in selling, so I moved out. It sat empty for about four years, and then I saw the for sale sign and made him an offer again.”

Shirek said Sliced Pizza occupies half of the space, with a boutique and a salon occupying the rest.

“There are also a couple of apartments above, so it seemed like a good investment,” she said. “This little village ended up bringing about seven women-owned businesses to downtown Scandinavia within a year.”

Pizza, pizza!

A quick look at the online menu shows the pizzeria specializes in a variety of pizzas – all homemade.

Whether you want to dive into a Pesto Both Worlds, The Wisco-Zza or a Greek Island pizza, Shirek said the menu has something for everyone.

“Currently, our special is a pickle pie (pizza),” she said. “Soon, the special will be Pizza de Mayo. It’s a Mexican pizza. Every month we do a different special. Sometimes we’ll add a flatbread or do two specials a month, in addition to our house pizzas that are standard on our menu.”

Shirek said Sliced Pizza always has six house pizzas and four flatbreads on the menu.

“And then, of course, you can also build your own pizza,” she said.

Shirek said Sliced Pizza’s dough is made fresh daily.

“We make our dough daily using only four ingredients,” she said. “We try to stay away from any preservatives, high fructose corn syrup or dyes. We truly try to keep it clean and fresh.”

Shirek said the pizzeria’s philosophy is “not overdoing it.”

“We try to just keep it to a handful of items and just make sure we do them really well,” she said.

In addition to pizzas and flatbreads, Shirek said Sliced Pizza offers appetizers, paninis, calzones, salads and desserts.

“Everything is made from scratch here,” she said. “We make a really good cheesecake – we rotate through one or two flavors a month. We also make tiramisu and have caramels from Sunny Caramels in Iola.”

Additionally, according to the company’s website (slicedpizzaco.com), local craft beers, wines and sodas are also available.

A learning experience

Since opening Sliced Pizza in 2019, Shirek said she has learned a lot as the business has evolved.

In the early days of the pizzeria, she said she used a double-decker, single pizza oven.

“I could only make two or three pizzas at a time,” she said. “I just had a standard KitchenAid mixer. I would say within a few weeks of opening, I ended up having a customer whose grandma had a 60-quart mixer in her garage, and we upgraded to that – that’s what I’m still using to this day.”

Though things started out strong in July 2019, Shirek said the pizzeria battled hardship about a month later.

“In August, we were hit with back-to-back tornadoes,” she said. “Our entire town lost power for a week and a half. I was lucky enough to have my ovens operate off gas and a friend who lent me a generator. We had all the workers and people in town start coming, and things really exploded from there.”

Then, within six months, the COVID-19 pandemic gripped the globe – shutting down everything.

“As far as our business plan, COVID obviously flipped everything upside down,” she said. “We had just (installed) 30 seats in here with booths and tables, and we never got a phone call (for pickup or delivery). It was basically all dine in (at that time). We had (plates) and glasses, and immediately, overnight, we went from all dine in to all phone calls for pickup and delivery.”

Shirek said Sliced Pizza’s delivery option is unique in the area.

“Because we deliver (within an) eight-mile (radius), we can hit Amherst, Iola, downtown Waupaca and obviously Scandinavia,” she said. “No one delivers out here, and that was really before DoorDash and Uber Eats. We had to pivot during COVID, and we definitely learned a lot.”

Shirek said Sliced Pizza still offers delivery and pickup.

“I would say each option – dine in, delivery or pickup – is about one-third of our business,” she said. “It took us a little bit to get back to normal, but now I feel in the last year or two, people are coming in more. They’re socializing and checking out the area.”

Keeping it local

Shirek said for her, it’s “very important to me to keep things local” at Sliced Pizza.

Having gone to school to become a holistic health practitioner, she said it was always important to her to eat “clean.”

“I also worked in the sustainable agriculture sector for about 10 years,” she said. “I started one of the first female farm collectives and had about 16 small farms – mostly (run by) female farmers – under me. We collectively grew mostly heritage proteins for high-end restaurants in Madison, Milwaukee and Appleton.”

Because of her experience in the sustainable agriculture sector, Shirek said she got to network with chefs and butchers.

“I learned about cuts of meat, processing and the logistics of all that,” she said. “At the time, my kids were getting older, and I traveled a lot throughout the country, lobbying in Madison and Washington, D.C., doing keynote speaking. It became too much, and I decided I wanted to be home more.”

That’s when Shirek said she whittled things down and got back to the basics of clean eating.

“That’s when I found this building again back on the market,” she said. “It was a good way for me to integrate all of those things. Also, I guess my love language is food and feeding people, so it was a natural fit and grew organically. I had never done advertising. I wanted it to slowly develop into its own thing, and I feel like it’s finally become that.”

Shirek said with all things she does at Sliced Pizza, “consistency is the key.”

“We try to be consistent in what we do and have consistent hours,” she said. “A lot of small businesses will close here and there. Being consistent is important for me.”

Sliced Pizza Company is open from 4-8 p.m. Thursdays, 4-9 p.m. Fridays, 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Saturdays and 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Sundays.