Jim Acheson has been in the pizza business almost his entire life... but it took a little while for him to work his way up to being a master pizza chef.

"I worked here as a kid. I got to clean the bathroom and then I graduated to washing the windows and I was a dishwasher," says Jim.

It was 55 years ago that Jim's Grandfather Sam returned from serving in the military, where he had learned how to make a delicious cuisine called pizza.

Jim's Grandmother Louise then took over and developed an array of recipes.

"She really came up with the recipes with Grandpa's help and then they moved to Hibbing, which was seven miles away and opened the first Sammy's Pizza in 1954," says Jim.

Since then a number of Sammy's Pizza's restaurants have opened including Jim's parents' store in Duluth's Lakeside.

As Sammy's Pizza has been a Minnesota landmark for years... they pride themselves on knowing the friendly faces that walk in the door.

"We know most of our customers by name and we might know what kind of pizza they eat and whether their kids play basketball or baseball," says Jim.

"It's good food, good people, and it's locally owned and runned," says Sammy's customer Steve Marshall.

Jim plans to keep the tradition going for years to come.

"One of the things that I like about what we do is we come to work everyday and mostly the way we do things is exactly the way grandma and grandpa would do things," says Jim.

Sammy's Pizza has 19 locations all owned and operated by family members.

Ten of those restaurants are located right here in the Northland.