Casey’s quietly became America’s fifth-largest pizza chain. Meet the Fortune 500 gas station Gen Z can’t stop posting about

Drive through Iowa, Missouri or Illinois, and you’ll pass a Casey’s roughly every few exits.

Midwesterners have come to know the red-roofed convenience store and gas station where people buy diesel, a bag of ice, a lottery ticket and, increasingly, a hot pizza.

Maybe it’s one of their distinctive creations, like the taco pizza or the breakfast pizza.

Casey’s is closing in on 3,000 stores, nearly half of which sit in towns of 5,000 people or fewer and about two-thirds in towns under 20,000.

The Fortune 500 company’s stock price is surging as America wakes up to the stealth pizza empire sitting under its nose: it’s up more than 50% in the past 12 months for a market capitalization of $28 billion.

Bank of America Research recently ran the numbers and concluded that Casey’s pizza business ranks as the fifth-largest pizza chain in the entire U.S., when measured by prepared food and dispensed beverage sales.

Tom Brennan, Casey’s chief merchandising officer, confirmed to Fortune that it is the fifth-largest pizza chain and the fourth-largest liquor license holder in the U.S., not to mention third-largest convenience store.

“You don’t hear the other big pizza players talk about Casey’s,” he added, “but at the same time, it’s evident from our growth … we’re taking share as we continue to grow.” Ask Brennan whether “stealth” is a fair word for his company and he laughs a little at an out-of-touch, coastal way of thinking.

“Certainly stealthy for, I think, a lot of the U.S.,” but ask anyone in its 19 states, and they’ll know Casey’s.

That’s starting to change a bit online.

TikTok and YouTube have built a small, oddly durable genre around “ gas-station pizza ” — creators bracing for something left under a heat lamp then wowed by something genuinely good.

Casey’s turns up constantly in the genre, praised for its scratch-made dough and on-site pizza ovens, and Brennan said he welcomes it.

Casey’s social team found its penetration with Gen Z has climbed 600 basis points over the past three years based on engagement.

“What underpins all of this is just this incredible fandom and brand love that we’ve generated.” It all comes down to something an algorithm can’t fake, he added, an authenticity so beloved in the age of AI backlash and analog fever.