Stuc’s Pizza sauce ‘flying off the shelves’

Rich Palzewic

Staff

June 15, 2026

NEENAH – What started in their kitchen – “stirred with a lot of love and some late nights” – Jason Beatty, owner of Stuc’s Pizza & Pints’ Neenah location, said, is now making its way into customers’ kitchens. 

Beatty said the Fox Valley staple since 1990 recently announced its signature sauce is now available in jars at Woodman’s Market in Appleton 

“Whether it’s pizza night, pasta night or ‘I don’t feel like cooking but still want something amazing’ night, we’ve got you covered,” he said. “It seems like everybody loves the sauce – it’s unique. The sauce is probably considered a little more on the sweeter side.”

Now that Woodman’s in Appleton is carrying Stuc’s Pizza sauce, Beatty said he believes it will be easier to expand into additional Northeast Wisconsin markets.

He said early sales in Appleton have been strong, fueling optimism about what comes next.

“It’s basically all on me to decide where we go from here [with other locations],” he said. “Despite our sauce being the most expensive sauce in the store, it’s selling out. It was hard to keep it on the shelves for about two weeks but has since settled down a bit.”

For now, Beatty said he can handle stocking the shelves at Woodman’s in Appleton because it’s only a handful of miles away from where Stuc’s is located in Neenah.

“I wake up on a Monday, go to Woodman’s, check the stock and make sure they have what they need,” he said. “If more sauce is needed, I travel back to the warehouse.”

If Green Bay – or another further away location – were in the equation, Beatty said that would take some “figuring out.”

“I’d either have to bring it there myself and stock the shelves or have someone do it,” he said. “I can’t speak for all Woodman’s, but considering we have people driving from Green Bay or Oshkosh to eat our pizzas, I think it’s a real possibility. I think the sauce will sell anywhere it’s available. We have wonderful customers, and a lot of people around want to support locals.”

You have to go way back…

After more than 30 years in the Fox Valley, Beatty said Stuc’s success is largely thanks to its original owners, Ron and Pam Stuc, who laid the foundation for the business.

Beginning operations in 1990 on the corner of Badger and Wisconsin in Appleton, he said the Stucs are like family to him.

“I was their first employee – that was 36 years ago when I was 14,” he laughed. “It was a tiny, carryout-only spot [then], and I worked with them all the way through high school. I also helped them build the current Appleton location owned by Erik Anderson.”

Beatty said his persistence paid off and led to his first “real job” when he attended Wilson Middle School in Appleton.

After opening their first Stuc’s in McHenry, Illinois, in 1976 and later relocating to Wisconsin, the couple’s early efforts – though they may not have realized it at the time – helped set the stage for Beatty’s own start in the industry.

“Wilson was just up the road from the original Stuc’s,” he said. “I would ride my bike home every day, and Stuc’s had a soda machine inside the little shop. I would slam my bike up against the plate window, walk in and say ‘hi’ to Ron and Pam, get a soda and ask for a job.”

Doing the same routine for two straight weeks, initially, Beatty said he received the same response, day after day – “We’re not hiring.”

“They had just opened and kept saying to me, ‘We can’t afford to pay ourselves, so please stop asking for a job,’” he laughed. “Pam would say, ‘If that little whatever with the Coke-bottle glasses keeps slamming his bike up against that window and asks me for a job, I’ll make him scrub sausage pans until his fingers bleed.’”

Not deterred, Beatty said he kept at it until the Stucs finally caved and offered him a job.

“I worked there all the way through high school, and then after high school, I got a job at a mill but didn’t like it,” he said. “Ron and Pam had decided they wanted to open up a full-scale restaurant, which is the location that currently exists in Appleton [at 110 N. Douglas St.]. They sent me to New York to learn how to do artisan baking, specifically bread.”

The story continues…

Because the Stucs are originally from bigger cities – Pam from New York, Ron, Chicago – Beatty said they wanted really good bread for the restaurant.

He said he came back from New York, and for four years, he worked nights at Stuc’s, six days a week and “never had a day off for four straight years.”

“I did the overnight baking of breads, pastries, desserts and stuff like that for them,” he said.

Though it may sound like it, Beatty said his personal journey wasn’t quite complete.

After four years of working the overnight shift, he said he then attended culinary school in Chicago, followed by a range of restaurant jobs across the country. 

“I worked in New Orleans, Denver and Fort Collins, Colorado, for a little bit,” he said. “After all of that, amazingly, I ended up pouring concrete for 12 years.”

Beatty said a move back to Colorado to open a cookie store with a friend, followed by a return to Wisconsin for a bartending job, eventually led to his current situation.

“When Eric wanted to sell the location I own now that used to be next to Holidays Bar & Grill, I [purchased it and] moved it across the street [to 1350 W. American Drive], because I wanted a full bar,” he said. “That was in January 2020, right before COVID-19 hit.”

Though a rough time, Beatty said his “amazing employees” helped Stuc’s come out the other end of the pandemic in good shape.

“I’m not quite sure when Ron and Pam sold the original location, but sometime shortly after COVID-19, it closed,” he said. “At our Neenah location, we have a full dining room that seats 80. Our full bar offers 10 craft beers on tap, and I’d estimate there are about 60 craft beers in bottles and cans available. And of course, we make amazing Old Fashioneds.”

How the sauce came into play

Beatty said the success of the sauce is largely due to Ron, crediting him with establishing the consistency and quality that made Stuc’s so popular.

“He is a real mentor to me,” he said. “About two years ago, I asked Ron if I could buy the recipes so I could start jarring the sauce and selling it retail. We came up with an agreement, and I started selling it in stores and local meat markets in the valley. I kept building it up before attempting to get the product into Woodman’s.”

Beatty said the same grit that led to his first “real job” helped him persist in getting Stuc’s Pizza sauce into Woodman’s.

“I kept going back to Woodman’s with jars of sauce and paperwork and tried to figure it out,” he said. “Eventually, just like the Stucs, they said ‘yes.’”

Beatty said he hasn’t touched the sauce’s original recipe at all, and as far as he knows, it’s the same set of ingredients Ron came up with and developed from 1976 until about 1990 when he opened the original Appleton location.

“He might have had it dialed in by then, but I don’t think any adjustments have been made,” he said. “Obviously, the sauce has been around for decades, but it was never jarred before I bought the recipes – that’s the only difference.”

With help from a friend at Jacobs Meat Market in Appleton, Beatty said he was connected with an Illinois company that jars sauce – noting that it must be done in an FDA-approved facility.

“I had to figure out how to come up with my own barcode and UPC symbol, and then I utilized my graphic designer friend to create the label,” he said. “After that, I contacted Dorina [So-Good, Inc.] in Illinois, and we sent them the recipe. They use the exact same recipe Stuc’s has been using for 36 years. If we wanted to jar the sauce ourselves, we’d have to build our own facility, and that’s not feasible – that’s why Dorina does it.”

With the legwork of jarring the sauce now behind him, Beatty said many people may not realize the return on investment is a slow process.

Producing 2,000 jars of sauce, he said, takes time and patience.

“We’re making pizzas every day at Stuc’s, so when would we have time to make and jar that much sauce?” he laughed. “When we make our pizzas, we just make our own sauce on-site for those.”

For more on Stuc’s, visit stucsneenah.com or find it on Facebook.