When Madison Ald. Jed Sanborn bought the Buck’s Pizza rrestaurants — thereâ??s a West Side location on University Avenue — from Bill Buchholz, he had to agree not to sell or even divulge the sauce recipe. â??Heâ??s pretty protective of it,â? Sanborn said. Buckâ??s Pizza got its name from founder George â??Buckâ? Backus, who opened the Cottage Grove location in 1960 after coming to Madison from Racine, where he managed the Meadowbrook Country Club. Backus later added a West Side location, on Midvale Boulevard, and Buckâ??s continued at those two locations until a couple of years ago, when the Midvale restaurant relocated to University Avenue. Backus did more than run the pizza restaurants. In March 1962, he was hired to manage concessions for the â??Wâ? Club. Backus stayed there for 22 years and turned it into a major money-maker for UW athletics. Sanborn, 38, enjoys the history associated with Buckâ??s. He came to Madison from the Twin Cities area for college and in 1995 got a degree from UW-Madison in political science and international relations.
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