Taking my girlfriend out for pizza on a Saturday night….I know. That’s classy. We were sitting around watching TV and both of us were hungry. I didn’t want burgers anymore and neither of us wanted to get dressed up for a fancy night out, so I suggested pizza. I kept reading that Deluca’s has won “Best Pizza….” many times, so we gave it a shot.
Not being really familiar with Lansing yet, Deluca’s took a little while to find. GPS is seriously the best invention of the last ten years. We weaved through the neighborhoods until we got back to Willow St. I’m not sure what I was expecting, but Deluca’s is not what I was expecting. It’s a really nice building located on the edge of a neighborhood. The parking lot looked packed, so we got kind of nervous about getting a table. We parked behind the building and walked back around front. There’s a little waiting room when you walked in filled with autographs of mostly local celebrities who have eaten there. After that, there’s a big counter for take out and a hostess station. Our fears of not getting a table were unwarranted. The place is huge. The hostess took us back past the bar to a booth along the wall. There’s a couple different rooms with booths and tables as well as a nice big bar.
Our waitress came over and told us her name and that she would be “hanging out” with us tonight. She took our drink order and talked us into an appetizer. We got an order of the homemade garlic sticks and for two bucks more, we added cheese to them. These garlic sticks could have been a meal themselves. We got five huge pieces of bread covered with mozzerella cheese and toasted. The bread was crispy on the outside but soft and chewey on the inside. A cup of red sauce would have helped a little, but not much. We both had one and half then tried to find a way to hide the others on our table. We started to get worried about having room left for pizza. The garlic sticks were so good and so filling.
For the main course, we ordered a 16″ cheese pizza. The waitress asked if we wanted extra cheese, but we declined and it’s a good thing we did. This pizza had a lot of cheese. Usually a 16″ is barely enough for the two of us. In this case, we didn’t even eat half of it. The crust is somewhere between a thin and thick crust. The bottom had a nice crunch but the inside was still soft and chewey. Like I said already, there was A LOT of cheese. My girlfriend had it figured out, but I was having trouble keeping the cheese on the crust. I lost all the cheese the in the first two pizzas I bit into. She told me to grab the piece by the edge of the cheese and bite and maybe I could keep the cheese on. Of course, she was right. There was a unique flavor to the sauce that you could tell was homemade.
The waitress came back just as we were both about to burst at the seams and tried to talk us into dessert. We had over half a pizza and two giant breadsticks still sitting on our table, so declined. She brought back a to-go box for us along with the check. The cost for the pizza, breadsticks and two Pepsi’s was about $24 and we had enough food left over for a couple days worth of lunch for both of us.
My quest for the perfect local pizza joint brought me to the north side of Lansing on the recommenadtion of just about every publication in the Greater Lansing area. My girlfriend really liked it comparing to a Chicago area pizza joint that her family eats at often. I liked it, but it still doesn’t have that “gotta have it” quality that I’m looking for. It’s a place we will definately visit again. The atmosphere is great. The portions are huge and delicious. I would definately say it’s the best pizza I’ve had so far in Lansing and it blows the chains out of the water.
Mid-Michigan Dining 
I gotta agree on Deluca’s. Having grown up in Lansing, I knew it as “Willow Bar Pizza”. I guess they dropped the bar a few years back. My boyfriend is not from Lansing and is also on the pizza quest. So far Pizza House in East Lansing is his top pick, but like you said no “gotta have it” quality there. He is from the east coast though…so Chicago style is not what he is looking for.
Best pizza in Lansing? Tough one. We’ve been searching for a few years now and think DeLuca’s and Art’s share the top spot. Pizza House is good too, although they’re not really unique to the area — there’s one in Ann Arbor too.
We’ll have to try Pizza House. I either like a true Chicago Style or a really thin crust. The in-between crust really isn’t my favorite, but we really liked Deluca’s. Thanks for the recommendation!
Pizza House is good, but knowing that it started in Ann Arbor (and being a Spartan for life), makes it hard for me to go there often.
Now DeLuca’s, I didn’t know about during college but discovered when I moved back to Lansing after a 12 year absence. And now we go about once a week/ 10 days even if we are (Diet) Coke drinkers instead of Pepsi.
If you like garlic, ask the kitchen to add minced garlic to the pizza sauce.
Pizza House keeps coming up, so we’ll have to check it out.
Thanks for the tip…I love garlic.
When we’re hungry for pizza, Deluca’s is ALWAYS our first choice!