Hungry Howie’s Pizza – Holt

10 08 2008
  • 2361 Cedar St.
  • Holt, MI 48842
  • (517) 699-9000
  • Website
  • Menu
Hungry Howies Pizza in Holt

Hungry Howie's Pizza in Holt

It was a long weekend.  We spent all weekend in Chicago and the drive home always seems to take forever.  We got stuck in traffic right away when we jumped on I-94 and stayed in bumper-to-bumper traffic until we got the 35th Street.  There were a lot of people trying to get to U.S. Cellular Field ten minutes before the game was about to start.  We hit a lot of traffic on the Skyway (I-90) leaving town and no one had I-Pass so the lines to the manned tollbooths were backed up.  Then, we got into Indiana, we came up on an accident on I-94 where traffic was at a standstill.  By the time we finally made it back to Lansing, neither of us were in the mood to cook dinner.

For some reason, J was craving pizza.  I said that sounded good to me.  We were sitting on the couch wathing the Olympics and a pizza sounded like a good solution.  We haven’t had Hungry Howie’s yet and their ads always intrique me with their flavored crusts.

I got on Google and found the Hungry Howie’s in Holt across from L & L Food Center.  We’re still on that quest for the “perfect pizza.”  There’s a front runner, but we want to give all the local delivery places a try.  Hungry Howie is a home grown chain.  Their numbers are in excess of 500 locations nationwide, but their offices are here in Michigan in Madison Heights.  Read the rest of this entry »


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Categories : Chains, Holt, Pizza, Restaurant, Reviews

Bell’s Greek Pizza

3 08 2008
  • 1135 E. Grand River Ave.
  • East Lansing, MI 48823
  • (517) 332-0858
  • Website
  • Menu
Bells Greek Pizza on E. Grand River near the campus of Michigan State

Bell's Greek Pizza on E. Grand River near the campus of Michigan State

Bell’s Greek Pizza is what I missed by going to a small private school instead of a state school.  When it got late, the only thing we had was vending machines.  There was no late night pizza place.  Whenever I visited friends at the University of Illinois or Southern Illinois University, I made sure to push for pizza at 3 am after the bars closed. 

I went looking for this place a while ago when my dad and a friend were in town, but I didn’t go far enough down Grand River to find it.  My girlfriend came home from work one Friday night and said she was hungry.  I suggested pizza so we drove across town to campus just for pizza.  I had a few people suggest Bell’s on this blog before so I was kind of looking forward to it. Read the rest of this entry »


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Categories : Downtown, East Lansing, Pizza, Reviews

Jet’s Pizza – S. Cedar

22 07 2008
  • 6445 S. Cedar St.
  • Lansing, MI 48911
  • (517) 882-6900
  • Website
  • Menu
Jets Pizza on S. Cedar St. in Lansing

Jet's Pizza on S. Cedar St. in Lansing

You may remember over the weekend I blogged a little bit about going to a Sugarland concert four and a half hours away in Peru, IL.  My girlfriend really likes Sugarland.  Today, the new CD Love on the Inside “dropped,” so we made a quick trip to Target to pick it up.  Yes, we actually BOUGHT a CD instead of stealing it.  That happens when a group actually puts out a full CD of good music and that’s something Sugarland does…unlike Metallica.  Well, we slept in and didn’t leave until lunch time.  After a little shopping, my girlfriend suggested lunch.  There’s a strip mall on Cedar Street in South Lansing that has couple sandwich shops so I headed that way.  The choice was between Jersey Giant Subs and Jet’s Pizza.  Jet’s won out because I was sort of in a pizza mood. Read the rest of this entry »


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Categories : Chains, Lansing, Pizza, Restaurant, Reviews, Sandwiches

Fat Boys Pizza & Subs

16 06 2008
  • 2040 Aurelius Rd.Fat Boys Pizza & Subs
  • Holt, MI 48842
  • (517) 699-2400
  • Website
  • Menu

After a long day at Michigan International Speedway for the Nascar Sprint Cup race, my girlfriend and I were exhausted and just needed food.  As I’ve mentioned many times before in this blog, I’m looking for that “gotta have it” local pizza.  Fat Boys may just be it.

The store is located in a shopping center on Aurelius Road in Holt.  They do delivery, but I drove by the store one other time and it looked like there were tables, so we deiced to go to the shop with plans on eating there.  I was wrong about that.  There’s a counter with some bar stools that we probably could have eaten at, but I’m assuming those are used more for lunch.  My girlfriend isn’t much of a meat eater, so we pretty much always get a cheese pizza, so there’s not too much of a reason to look at the menu.  We ordered a large cheese then sat down and read a copy of the LSJ that was sitting on the counter while we waited.  The guy that took our order said it would be about ten minutes, but I don’t even think it took that long. Read the rest of this entry »


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Categories : Holt, Local Flavor, Pizza, Restaurant, Reviews

Deluca’s Restaurant

8 06 2008
  • 2006 W. Willow St.Deluca's
  • Lansing, MI 48917
  • (517) 487-6087
  • Website
  • Menu

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. Read the rest of this entry »


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Categories : Lansing, Local Flavor, Michigan, Pizza, Restaurant, Reviews

Mancino’s Pizza and Grinders

5 06 2008
  • 6520 S. Cedar #4BMancino's Pizza and Grinders
  • Lansing, MI 48911
  • (517) 887-6300
  • Website
  • Menu

I’m going to try not to confuse you, but I’m still a little bit confused myself.  Growing up, my family would always eat at Mancino’s Pizza and Grinder’s in Bradley, IL.  I loved the sandwiches.  So, is this the same Mancino’s?  I’ve been searching the net for days and can’t come up with a good answer.  There’s no corporate website that links the two together.  I found another Mancino’s website that lists the Mancino’s on Clippert and that one is linked Samuel Mancino who is from St. Clair Shores, MI and started this concept for a store.  This website doesn’t list either the store on S. Cedar or the two in Bradley that I’ve always eaten at.  To make things even more confusing, there is a chain called Bellacino’s Pizza and Grinders which had stores in Peoria, IL where I lived the last five years.  Bellacino’s had the same menu and made the exact same sandwiches that Mancino’s did, but there is no Bradley store listed on their website either.  On their franchise info page, they say that the recipes are those of Samuel Mancino.  So, are all these stores related?  I still have no freakin clue………… Read the rest of this entry »


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Categories : Lansing, Pizza, Reviews, Sandwiches

City Limits Sports Grill

1 06 2008
  • 801 N. Cedar St.City Limits Mason
  • Mason, MI 48854
  • (517) 244-1090
  • Website
  • Menu

City Limits was a recommendation from an avid reader and one of my girlfriend’s interns.  We were sitting around after spending all day being a tourist in our own town debating about what to do for dinner.  I didn’t really feel like cooking, so we decided to go out.  We hopped in my truck and headed down Cedar Street to Mason.  City Limits sits just on the other side of 127 inside the Mason Bowling Center.  The parking lot looked pretty full when we pulled up.  Then it hit me.  Game 4 of the Stanley Cup finals had just started. 

We went inside and there was a hostess station at the door, but no one was there.  We didn’t know if we should wait or just sit down.  Finally a waitress noticed us and told us to sit wherever we would like.  The dining area is divided into a smoking and non-smoking space.  The non-smoking is down a couple stairs into a big, open room filled with tables, dart boards, and, of course, big screen TV’s.  We chose a booth along the wall near one of the huge projection TV’s.  I wasn’t super interested in watching the game, but that didn’t matter.  You can’t look up without seeing a TV somewhere.

It must have just been our luck that particular day.  Everyplace we ate we had a wait.  It took five to ten minutes before our waitress finally noticed us sitting there.  Once she did, she brought menus and got drink orders.  Saturday night is a margarita special, so my girlfriend got a strawberry margarita.  I wasn’t in the mood for alcohol so I just got a Pepsi.   The menu was full of the traditional sports bar fare.  There were burgers, pizza, salads, and chicken sandwiches on the menu, but the interesting thing was the grinders.

When I lived near Kankakee, IL, we always used to go to a pizza place called Mancino’s Pizza & Grinders (I’m still trying to figure out if the Mancino’s here in Lansing are the same thing), so we had Grinders all the time growing up.  My girlfriend had never heard the term before and was a little surprised when I got my sandwich.  I went with the half pizza grinder.  The seven inch sandwich was topped with pepperoni, ham, banana peppers (according to the menu anyway.  I didn’t taste or see them on the sandwich), mozzerella cheese and pizza sauce.  It’s like a little mini-pizza in sandwich form.  It was delicious.  I almost wish I got the full sandwich because when I was done, I wanted to keep eating.  It’s not quite the same as Mancino’s, but this one had a unique flavor with the ham.  For an extra buck, I added fries to my sandwich.  They were just typical fries…nothing special.

My girlfriend got the Southern Fried Chicken Salad with Buffalo Chicken tenders.  Again, they have the option of a half or full salad.  She asked the waitress what the size of the half was, but didn’t get a really good answer, so she ordered the full salad just to be safe.  The salad came with a bed of fresh lettuce, jack cheddar cheese, tomatoes, red onions, bacon and buffalo chicken tenders.  The chicken was hot and there was a lot of it.  Almost enough to make that a meal on it’s own.  She passed a few pieces of the chicken over to me and it really tasted like a boneless chicken wing.  She said the chicken was as hot as she likes buffalo wings and any hotter would have ruined the salad.  Her only complaint was the red onions.  They were stronger than she likes, but that’s a personal preference when it comes to onions.  Neither of us are big onion fans and there’s always the hope they won’t overpower the other ingredients.  With all the chicken, she probably finished about half the salad.

City Limits is a great space.  Yes, it’s a sports bar, but the design allows it to be a family friendly atmosphere as well.  The table next to us was a family with four kids.  They had a couple pizzas and all eyes were glued to the TV’s.  My girlfriend said her eyes got really dry from the smoke, but I didn’t notice it until we were leaving.  I think someone opened the door to the bowling alley a little too long and a huge cloud of smoke rolled in, but she said it was there the whole time.  We both LOVED the food.  My sandwich was delicious and something you can’t get at a lot of places.  We both left stuffed and only paid around $20.  Even with the crowd for the Red Wings game, our server was there when we needed her after the initial wait.


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Categories : Bar, Mason, Pizza, Restaurant, Reviews, Sports Bar

Pisanello’s Pizza

26 05 2008
  • 110 N. Main St.Pisanello's Pizza
  • Mt. Pleasant, MI 48854
  • (989) 773-9906
  • Website
  • Menu

I had family in town for the Memorial Day weekend.  On Sunday night, our two options were either sit on the couch and watch the Sprint Cup Race or we could pack up and head to Mt. Pleasant and spend a few hours at Soaring Eagle.  Gambling is always a good option with my family so we headed north.  I didn’t realize Mt. Pleasant was 75 miles from Lansing when we started.  I put the address in my GPS and after a few minutes, I looked at the miles and thought “Oh crap!”  I told everyone it was only a half hour or so.  After a quick conference..actually, I just asked my dad, he said “Go,”  so I went.

It was about 7:45 when we left Lansing and the only other meal we had eaten was at about 2:00 when we ate at Wendy’s, so finding a restaurant before we hit the casino was a must.  I had read somewhere about a really good pizza place in Mt. Pleasant…and like gambling, pizza is always a sure bet in my family.  I did a quick Google search for “Best Pizza Mt. Pleasant, MI” and Pisanello’s popped right up.  I figured this had to be the place.  I didn’t realize it until I started writing this review, but Pisanello’s is actually a small chain with nineteen locations in Ohio and Michigan with the original being in Alliance, OH.  The Mt. Pleasant location is located in a small building in downtown.  There were just a few booths and one table big enough for our party of seven.  We noticed a sign that said “order here” so my mom and I went up to the register to place the order. 

We started with an order of breadstix.  The order consisted of six breadstix dusted with parmesean cheese.  A marinara sauce came on the side for dipping.  There were six breadstix and seven of us, so as you can imagine, we tore through them in just a few minutes.

Next up were the pizzas.  We got two 16″ pies for the seven of us.  One of them we got half cheese, half pepperonni.  The other was half sausage and half bacon.  They were both a thicker crust, but not a Chicago style.  They were actually very similar to Papa John’s pizzas, but they tasted much better.  the crust was chewey and the cheese was piled on.  The pies came out smokin hot and the cheese was stringy, but stuck to the crust.  I had the pepperoni side of one of the pizzas and the pepperoni’s were cooked perfectly.  I like it when the meat has a little crunch to it and these did.  When all was said and done, there was one piece left between the two pizzas, so the portion was the perfect side.  As a bonus, both pizzas came with a cup of garlic dipping sauce (again, very similar to Papa John’s) for the crust.

The hit of the evening was definately dessert.  My mom noticed a “dessert pizza” on the menu and had to give it a try.  She didn’t have a very hard time convincing anyone else it was a good idea either. About the time we were finishing up with the pizza, the cook brought out the dessert pie.  A small pizza crust was covered in cinnamon sugar and vanilla icing.  I think we may have fought over this one a little bit….I think everyone at the table would have loved to eat the whole thing themselves.  It was delicious.  Everyone looked at me asked if I could do that at home.  I probably could, but I don’t think it would be as good.

My family is usually pretty tough to please when it comes to pizza.  Some of them like thin crust while others prefer the thicker crust.  Everyone left with the same opinion of Pisanello’s though.  It was delicious.  In the past, I’ve mention my quest for the perfect pizza.  This wasn’t quite that because it reminded me a lot of Papa John’s pizza which I also like, but don’t love.  Pisanello’s was a great choice for us.  Everyone was very happy with the food, but even better, we ate all that food for $30!


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Categories : Local Flavor, Michigan, Mt. Pleasant, Pizza, Restaurant, Reviews

Monical’s Pizza – Champaign, IL

20 05 2008
  • 103 W. Kirby AveMonical's Pizza
  • Champaign, IL 61820
  • (217) 356-4243
  • Website
  • Menu

Monical’s Pizza is a small chain located primarily in Central Illinois with a few locations in Indiana and one in Wisconsin.  I grew up eating at locations in Bradley, IL and Watseka, IL.  Monical’s was always the hang out after football games and where we went with large groups before hitting the movies.  While in Champaign for the Big Ten Men’s and Women’s Outdoor Track Championships, I got reacquainted with this childhood memory. 

Monical’s actually got it’s start in nearby Tolono, IL.  The restaurant on Kriby Ave. is one of the new Big Tomato locations which has a bigger menu than just the pizza Monical’s has served since the late 1950’s.  I didn’t actually get to eat in the store.  The manager on my job ordered a bunch of pizza for dinner one night since we weren’t able to get a real dinner break.

Monical’s is a super-thin crust and crispy pizza.  There are actually spices added to the crust which give the pizza an interesting flavor.  Usually on thin crust pizza, you get a pretty bland crust.  With Monical’s, you actually have to wipe your hands clean because you end up with spices on them.  Instead of being cut into wedges, the pizza is cut in tiny squares.  Just something elset that makes them stand out above the usual pizza pie.  The sauce is a thin red sauce with a little bit of a kick then cheese and toppings are piled on.  Where I’m from, Monical’s pizza can’t be eaten without their signature sweet and tart salad dressing.  I always thought it was wierd, but people actually have the waitress keep the salad dressing on the table when the pizza came, but people just love this stuff.  You can actually buy bottles of the dressing on their website.

Over the years, it kind of seems like the pizza has changed and not in the good way.  The location I always used to go to in Bradley is now closed and the other locations just don’t have the same feel to them as this one did, so I’ve kind of been turned off to their pizza.  I’ve eaten at many of the locations and every now and then it’s just good to go back to an old favorite.  That’s how this weekend felt when I was unintentionally scarfing down a whole pizza.  It’s not usually my first choice any more, but when it’s put in front of me, I can’t help but wolf it down.


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Categories : Big Ten Tour, Champaign, Champaign/Urbana, Illinois, Pizza, Reviews

Pizza Al Forno

11 05 2008
  • 1943 Cedar St.Pizza Al Forno
  • Holt, MI 48842
  • (517) 694-4175
  • No Known Website
  • Menu

No matter where you live in the country, there’s one place that the locals go for pizza.  There’s one place somewhere that is just a little, locally owned, shop that serves up the most delicious pizza you swear you’ll ever eat.  I haven’t had much of a chance yet to find that place and no one has really been able to offer that information up here in Lansing.  I’ve been getting coupons in the mail for some local places, so I figure it’s finally time to start looking.

The first place I tried was Cottage Inn (review here).  That’s kind of a chain, so not really what I’m looking for.  The next place we tried was a little place called Pizza Al Forno in Holt.  I called the order in at about 6:30 on a Sunday night.  They offered delivery, but I really needed to get out of the house, so I got it for pick up.  We headed down Cedar St through Holt to find a pretty non-descript shop in a non-descript strip mall next to the Edru Skae-A-Rama.  It’s strictly a carry-out place….only a counter and the kitchen inside.  My pie was really reasonably priced.  I got a 16″ pepperoni pizza for just under $11.

Once we got it back home, we didn’t waste anytime digging in.  The menu brags that they use all locally grown ingredients and make their sauce from scratch.  That’s what it looked like to me.  The sauce is put on pretty thick and you can taste the fresh tomatos. There was a kind of a sweetness to it instead of a spicyness that most places shoot for.   It’s not a smooth, blended sauce.  There are chunks of tomatos and you get that in every bite.  The cheese was a nice golden brown and held up on each bite.  My girlfriend called the pepperoni’s “cute.”  Instead of a handful of huge pepperoni’s, there were a lot of little pepperoni’s.  The crust is a thin New York-style crust and sort of chewey.

She wasn’t very hungry and only had two pieces and I didn’t finish the rest of it by a long shot.  Even if she had been hungry, the 16″ would have been enough and there probably would have been a little left.  Pizza Al Forno was good.  It wasn’t the knock your socks off I’m looking for, but it is good enough to put the phone number away for another day. 


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Categories : Holt, Local Flavor, Michigan, Pizza, Reviews

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