Mid-Michigan Dining

• 986 Trowbridge Road
• East Lansing, MI 48823
• (517) 324-7000
• No Known Website
• Menu

Fat Matt's Pizza in the Trowbridge Plaza in East Lansing.

I’m still on that quest for the perfect pizza.  We’ve found a couple really, really good ones and some really, really just alright ones.  I had been hearing things about a fairly new place in East Lansing called Fat Matt’s.  Since I was in the area, hungry, and tired, I stopped in to Fat Matt’s to see if they could place on my pizza list.

Fat Matt’s Pizza is located in the Trowbridge Plaza in East Lansing.  It’s a little tough to find at first.  It’s not visible from Trowbridge Road.  There’s a little section of the plaza on the side that has a few stores and Fat Matt’s is the last store in this stretch.  It actually sits right next to Goodrich’s loading docks. 

The store itself is pretty small.  Most of the space is taken up by the kitchen, but they do have two tables should you want to sit there and eat for some reason.  I had heard they did pizza-by-the-slice and they had a display for them, but there was nothing in it.  Instead of questioning, I just ordered a large pizza.  Usually, we get just cheese pizza since J doesn’t really like toppings, but I was in the mood for pepperoni, so I got half cheese, half pepperoni.  I got a little bit of sticker shock when the guy told me the price was $17.  I thought that was pretty expensive for a pizza.  I looked at the menu and a large cheese pizza is $13 then it’s almost $2 more for each topping.  To me, that doesn’t seem like a way to compete with the chains.

I went back outside for ten minutes to make a phone call.  By the time I came back in, my pizza was done and waiting for me.  I grabbed it and headed home. 

Fat Matt's Pizza near MSU in East Lansing.

I know for sure they’re not spending any of that $17 on boxes.  The box the pizza came in was sort of funny.  It was just a generic, plain white box with “Fat Matt’s Pizza” written on the face with a black Sharpie.  The top of the box had a fun fact on it.  It said “A rhinoceros horn is made of compacted hair.”  OK, maybe if I order enough pizzas, I’ll get a college education and the price of the pizzas will be cheaper than a degree from MSU.  Not really sure what that was all about, but I did get a chuckle out of it.

The pizza was alright.  It wasn’t a thin crust, but it wasn’t a thick crust either.  It was somewhere in between.  The large pizza is an 18 inch pie and there was a lot of pepperoni on my half.  J said when we get pizza with this type of crust, she likes a real doughy crust and that’s what we got.  We were both starving and ate all but three pieces of the pie.

So, where does Fat Matt’s fit in the Lansing Metro pizza scene?  Probably somewhere in the middle.  The price is what will keep me from ordering again.  It’s twelve bucks more than a pizza from Little Ceasars.  I’m not saying Fat Matt’s compares to Little Ceasar’s, but it’s also not twelve bucks better.  I’ve heard the calzones were good and I might stop back if I could get just a slice or two, but probably won’t order a full pizza again.  Again, we liked the pizza and didn’t have a problem finishing it off.  It was pretty good, I just wasn’t expecting that high of a price.