Making a difference: Jim Casper
Hard work, determination lead self-taught baker to success, storefront
November 3, 2025
SHEBOYGAN – Brothers John and Tony Ranieri said their heritage is shaped by two regions: Italy and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.
“We’re proud of both,” Tony said.
The brothers said they’ve been honoring their U.P. roots since 2021, when they co-created the Sheboygan Pasty Co. – their brand of high-quality pasties – from their Sheboygan restaurant, Ranieri’s Four of a Kind Bar & Grill.
With their new product – Casa Ranieri Calzones – which hit stores last month, Tony and John said they’re now able to similarly nod to their Sicilian ancestry.
“We’ve eaten a lot of Italian food in our lives and love to cook it, so [a calzone] is something that’s a little bit more in our wheelhouse, right from the drop, as opposed to having to learn a little bit more when [we started] making the pasties,” Tony said.
Like their pasties, John said their calzones are made with “locally sourced, fresh ingredients” – with the initial feedback being just as favorable as that of their flagship product line.
“If you like calzones but haven’t found a good one in the grocery store, try ours,” Tony said. “We’ll change your mind for you.”
The past(y) is prologue
When the COVID-19 pandemic impacted Four of a Kind in 2020, the Ranieris said they began selling pasties to-go as a way to sustain the restaurant.
The response, Tony said, was nothing short of amazing, with customers raving about the braided crust and savory filling and picking up more than 1,000 pasties in a three-day span.
As the year saw steady sales beyond the initial enthusiasm, the brothers said they decided to launch a frozen wholesale company and share their pasties beyond Sheboygan.
As new demand, distribution deals and production expansions kept coming for Sheboygan Pasty Co., so, too, John said, have ideas for new products.
“We were actually working on empanadas – that was going to be our next thing, and then we were going to get into calzones,” he said. “But then in March or April [of 2025], Palermo’s, our distributor, called us and said, ‘We love your pasties and they’re selling great. Come up with four varieties of calzones, and we’ll get them on the shelf.’”
A casa united
Agreeing to put their empanada plans on hold for the time being, the Ranieris said similar to their early pasty research process, they purchased a variety of frozen calzones for a basis of comparison.
“We brought them home and tried them all out, and they were unimpressive, mostly dough and hardly any fillings to them, really dry – you had to put a sauce on them,” John said. “Just by that [process], we thought, ‘Wow – we can do way better.’ They set the bar really low.”
To the uninitiated, the brothers said they explain the calzone concept as “a pizza folded in half.”
“I guess it’s similar to the pasties in that it’s [got filling] in a crust, but it’s more like pizza toppings,” Tony said.
In addition to using premium ingredients to fill their calzones, the brothers said they decided to use the Sheboygan Pasty Co. – so beloved by pasty fans – as the base.
Their distributor, they said, gave resounding approval of the results.
“The guy at Palermo’s describes it to the buyers at the [grocery] stores as a ‘restaurant-quality product,’” John said.
Per casaranieri.com, the four Casa Ranieri Calzones options to debut are:
- Sausage and Pepperoni
- The Italian Stallion – with filling comparable to supreme pizza toppings
- Garden Pesto – for which John said he makes fresh basil pesto, rather than purchasing pesto with preservatives and fillers, which can affect nut allergies
- Rustic Sausage and Spinach
Though their pasty brand has built a strong reputation – and the calzones technically operate under the same business entity – the Ranieris said they chose to give the new product category its own name.
“If we were going to call them ‘Sheboygan Pasty Co. Calzones,’ it would be confusing,” Tony said.
With “casa” being Italian for “house,” the brothers said they chose the Casa Ranieri name to embody the strong family dynamic at play, including John’s wife, Maria, who he said joined the pasty operation about three years ago.
“[To call her an] administrative assistant would be understating it,” Tony said.
Even without creating a new entity and with the crust dough pulling double duty, the brothers said adding the calzone category has made for a very full casa.
Jokingly, the brothers said keeping up with the restaurant and pasty and calzone production is only possible through “smoke and mirrors and a lot of caffeine.”
“Actually, we really have a good crew, both at the bar and at production, and a lot of friends and family who are there for us, and they’ve got our back,” Tony said.
In total, John said “we have five employees, plus my wife, myself and Tony.”
“Between pasties and calzones, we probably put out 20,000 [items] over the last month and a half,” he said.
Empanadas, minis and more
To house the growing operation, John said they’re finalizing a move into a new production facility with new machinery by the end of the year.
With the new facility, the Ranieris said they’ll be able to grow their product offerings – with the next launch being the long-awaited empanadas.
John said the empanadas – under the brand name Abuela’s Kitchen – are expected to launch “toward the end of the first quarter next year.”
“Probably right around the same time, we’re going to be rolling out smaller, mini calzones and empanadas and pushing those out to restaurants,” he said.
Until then, the Ranieris said they’re excited for the calzones to hit shelves across Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Nebraska, South Dakota and beyond.
By sticking with the Sheboygan Pasty Co. entity, the brothers said Casa Ranieri Calzones will be available in all the stores previously stocking the pasties.
Though the two categories of products will appear in separate sections of the stores’ frozen foods departments, the Ranieris said their pricing will be similar.
Though the established pasties are paving the way for their calzones in the Upper Midwest, the brothers said outside of the region – where “more people know what calzones are versus pasties” – the plan is to flip that approach, using the calzones to introduce the U.P.’s “niche” cuisine to larger audiences.
“The calzones will allow us to actually get the pasties into certain regions, because they are very regional…, [whereas] calzones will sell at any store anywhere,” John said. “The calzones and the empanadas will allow us to get a further reach all across the U.S. with everything.”
John said the new facility and forthcoming products position the company for substantial growth – “we plan on getting very big.”
“The goal is to be nationwide with all the products,” Tony said. “There’s no nationwide company that makes frozen pasties, frozen calzones or frozen empanadas. We’re going to try and do it.”
Visit the aforementioned website for more information and follow Casa Ranieri Calzones on Facebook for information on upcoming in-store sampling events.
