That pizza joint on the hill

It seems like you are describing Shakeys Pizza- guy with red/white striped shirt, handlebar moustache...

Happy Joe's. Sleep well.

I think Happy Joe's was where China Star is, or was it that place that was a lodge, but I think it's a sports bar now. What was the other if one of them was Happy Joe's?

It was Shakey's Pizza which is now the BPO Elks club.  I do believe the owners were the Rohlfing family.

Happy Joe's! Yes, Where China Star is and across from the Elk's Club. Giant jawbreakers are the only candy I remember too. The pizza sauce was not the best, but I was too young to care as I was there for the root beer and candy!

I had a few birthday parties there as a kid. The staff would sound a siren and flash strobe lights on the ceiling before singing Happy Birthday. The chain still exists; I think the nearest location is in Fargo.

Also, the owner/founder was Lawrence Joseph "Happy Joe" Whitty.

Happy Joe's is fairly obviously a clone of Shakey's, and if memory serves, Happy Joe himself was once associated with Shakey's.

Shakey's and Happy Joe's have both had their ups and downs.  Shakey's at one point had over 400 locations coast to coast but is now a basically California chain with only a half dozen stores outside California. At their 1980s peak, they had nine stores in Minneapolis/St. Paul.

Happy Joe's is based in Iowa and once had many stores in Minnesota and Wisconsin but now only two in Minnesota, in Crookston and New Ulm.

Neither Shakey's nor Happy Joe's got into the trend of pizza being a delivery business.  They were still building traditional dine-in pizzerias at a time when Pizza Hut was scaling them back and replacing them with carry-out/delivery only locations.

Shakey’s in Duluth, Brainerd and Sioux Falls was owned by Harry Kase. After he sold Duluth I think it changed to Chicago Pizza.