Pizza Ranch — Restaurant in Cottleville

It was a cold and crisp evening when Roy and I arrived in O'Fallon, Missouri, after a long day of work. We were out of town from North Alabama, and the only thing that had been keeping me going was the thought of the trip we were about to take to Pizza Ranch. I'd been raving about the place all day—how the pizza was top-notch, how the fried chicken was crispy and perfect, and how the salad bar had everything you could ever want. Roy, of course, was skeptical, but I was confident this was going to be one of those moments where I could prove him wrong.

We walked into the restaurant, and the familiar smells of cheesy pizza and golden fried chicken hit us immediately. The place was bustling, warm, and inviting. I grabbed a plate and headed straight for the pizza buffet. "You’re in for a treat, my friend," I said, piling a mountain of slices on my plate. "Pizza Ranch does it right."

Roy rolled his eyes. "If this pizza’s as good as you say, you owe me an apology."

We dug in, and for a while, everything was perfect. The crust was just right, the toppings were fresh, and the fried chicken was crispy—just as I remembered. Roy even gave a nod of approval after his first few bites, though he still wasn’t ready to admit I was right. "Not bad," he said, "not bad at all."

But that’s when things started to take a turn. We finished our meal, paid our bill, and walked out into the cool evening air. I could feel a slight discomfort in my stomach, but nothing major—at least, that’s what I thought.

As I got behind the wheel to head back to our hotel, my stomach twisted. Then, it hit me. A sharp, stabbing pain. The kind of pain that makes you wish you could tear your insides out. "Oh no," I muttered, gripping the steering wheel. "I don’t feel too good."

Roy, sitting in the passenger seat, chuckled. "What did I tell you? Looks like the mighty Pizza Ranch has claimed its first victim."

I groaned in pain, but Roy’s laughter only made it worse. By the time we pulled into the hotel parking lot, I was sweating, my body shaking, and my stomach felt like it was a war zone. But it didn’t stop there. As soon as we got inside the room, I collapsed onto the bed, barely able to move. Roy was still laughing at first, thinking it was just a little stomach ache. He thought he was fine.

Then it hit him.

The next few hours are a blur of agony, but I remember Roy and I both running to the bathroom in turns, both of us completely incapacitated. We could barely make it out of bed, let alone to the hospital. The pain was unreal, like something out of a nightmare. The only thing that kept us going was the fact that we couldn’t stop laughing at how terrible the situation was. We were both suffering from the worst case of food poisoning known to man.

By the time the night ended, we had been to the bathroom more times than I could count. We didn’t even have the strength to make it to a hospital, which, looking back, was probably for the best because we would've probably just spread the misery.

For the next two days, we didn’t eat a single thing—not until we begrudgingly bought a chicken nugget from McDonald's. And, of course, I threw that up too.

But here’s the thing. It was one of the hardest, most painful nights of my life. It was a test. It was brutal. But I survived it. Roy survived it. And we both learned something that night: If we could make it through that, we could make it through anything.

Thank you, Pizza Ranch. You gave me more than just a good meal—you gave me a story that I’ll never forget. You gave me a sense of strength, a new appreciation for my own resilience. And most importantly, you gave me a bond with Roy that I know we’ll both remember forever, every time we laugh about it (and yes, we do laugh about it now). You put hair on my chest, Pizza Ranch. And you...

We are regulars of the Wentzville Pizza Ranch. So when we found out that Cottleville had opened a new Pizza Ranch we were very excited to see this new supposedly upgraded version of Pizza Ranch. The food was basically the same, but the game room and the service was absolutely hideous. Trying to get a drink cup and get the attention of an employee in order to get one took 10 to 15 minutes. Then we take the three grandchildren into the game room. They're so excited to play games. More than half of the games they wanted to play were unavailable AKA broken or needed service. How is that with a brand new store and why don't they have somebody servicing these machines regularly. This was a weekend which should be there money making time. Then they only had one person in the game room so getting help in there was absolutely impossible and when trading in their tickets we had to stand in line for quite a while. I hope they get their act together, but will be making the extra drive to Wentzville because that Pizza Ranch at least maintains their machines and they actually have more of them. I would think a new store would have machines that work and would have more of them. I can't tell you how disappointed we were and how disappointed the children were because they knew what a Pizza Ranch was supposed to be like and this was definitely not what they're...

My family and I visited your location at about 5pm on Saturday night 2/3, our family of four always looks forward to coming to your location since opening. We have two young children age 1 and 4 who loves playing your games in the fun zone but this past visit we were disappointed with our time in there and ended up leaving earlier than usual. After we finished our meal our kids were excited to go play some games to win some prizes but it seemed like half the games were broken or “down.” For example the driving game in the back right corner of the fun zone, one of the cars was down so only one of my kids could play at a time. Also, the claw machine across from it was down and that is a favorite for my 4 year old. After walking around for about ten minutes my kids kind of just wanted to go home because of all the games that were down. When we did end up leaving they wanted to cash out and get some candy, there was no one at the redemption counter (on a busy Saturday night?!), we pushed the button to get some help and had to wait 15 minutes until I had to go to the register at the front letting the staff know what was going on. It’s very disappointing if this is how this establishment is going because we were so excited that a pizza ranch was coming so close to our home. We might think twice before we choose you location for a...