Main Street Diner & Pizzeria
463 S. Main StreetAs I’ve explained multiple times over the last several posts, we had to make a trip back to Illinois for a memorial service. The timing coincided with a figure skating competition L was already signed up for in Flossmoor, IL which isn’t too far from where I grew up.
B and I rented a car on Friday and drove to Flossmoor in the morning to watch L skate. My parents were also planning on coming up one of the two days she was skating. They decided to come Friday since B and I would also be there.
There was a long gap in between L’s events so I grabbed my parents and had them follow me to return the rental car then we got lunch.
We got back to the arena to watch L’s final skate which was right around 2:30.
L was done by about 3:30 but she wanted to stay and watch some of her friends skate. B and I were ready to go so I asked my parents if we could just go with them. We were staying at their house that night anyway so L and J could just meet us there later.
We actually headed back to my old high school. My niece had a softball game so it was fun to get to watch her play. I also ended up running in to a high school classmate that I haven’t seen in probably 25 years and got to talk to him for a while.
The game got over around 6:00 then we headed back to my brother’s house for dinner and to hang out.
There aren’t a lot of carry-out options in the small town my brother lives in. The last time we were there, we ordered pizzas from Casey’s in nearby Chebanse. This time, we decided to order from the pizza place in town.
Main Street Diner & Pizzeria is on Main Street/Old Route 45 which runs through the middle of the small village of Clifton. The restaurant is part of “downtown” which is comprised of one block of 100 year old brick buildings all connected to each other. The spot has been some kind of restaurant as long as I can remember. Before Main Street Diner, it was the Clifton Deli. I seem to remember it being some other kind of diner when I lived in the area in the late ’90’s but I can’t remember exactly what it was. The buildings along this stretch are all above street level. There is a long concrete staircase that runs the whole block to get to the buildings…a design choice that probably wouldn’t fly today. If you can’t use the stairs, you’ll have to enter the block from either end.
My sister-in-law put in the order for two pizzas and an order of breadsticks. My dad said he’d go get it so I decided to tag along. I wanted to run to the gas station (yes, there’s only one in town) to pick up a Pepsi so I made him go there first.
Main Street Diner has kind of evolved over the years. It started out as just a pretty standard diner then they added on the pizzeria part later. The pizzas are only available after 4:00 so it’s standard diner for breakfast/lunch then diner/pizzeria for dinner.
The cash register is right inside the door. We went inside and dad gave them the name. The pizzas weren’t quite ready yet so we took a seat to wait.
This first space is mostly counter as there are ice cream coolers used in the summer months. There are a few tables here but the bigger dining room is in another area of the restaurant.
The second dining room is a little bigger and was pretty full on a Friday night at dinner time. It’s a small, intimate dining room with a homey feeling to it. There’s a combination of black leather booths and tables squeezed in to the space. All are covered with black and white checkered tablecloths. There’s a TV hanging on the wall that was tuned in to the Food Network to provide some noise to the room.
I had to run to the bathroom while we were waiting and by the time I got back, the pizzas were ready. We had ordered a large thin crust Italian Beef pizza and a large half sausage/half cheese pizza plus an order of 6 bread sticks. The cost was right around $50 which my dad paid for as I grabbed the boxes and headed to the car.
I went straight for the Italian beef pizza when we got back to my brother’s house. The thin crust pizza is cooked and cut Chicago tavern style. It’s topped with sliced Italian beef, pepperoncini, and giardiniera. The pizza has a delicious crispy crust that holds up really well to the sauce and cheese piled on top of it. I could go with a lot more giardiniera on this pizza. There was some there underneath the cheese and it was noticeable. I just like pizzas like this to have a kick to them. The pepperoncini’s were fine but I could have done without them and more giardiniera. It’s always so hard for me with pizzas like this because I instantly want to compare them with my favorite pizza, Palermo’s 95th. That’s not fair though. This is still a really good pizza and satisficed the Italian beef craving I get anytime I get anywhere close to Chicago.
The other pizza was also a large thin crust. It was supposed to be half sausage and half just cheese, but it came with sausage on the whole thing. That was fine though. We had ordered the half cheese for B but I knew he wasn’t going to eat much. I pulled some sausage off a couple of slices before he could notice and put it on his plate. The pizza had that same delicious crispy crust but this one was topped with big, delicious pieces of Italian sausage. This is definitely a Chicago tavern pizza with those big pinches of sausage. You got a big piece in every bite.
The bread sticks were much larger than I expected them to be. They were long and kind of flat with some parmesan cheese seasoning on top. The thing I love about this area of Illinois is the dipping sauce that comes with the bread sticks. Marinara is not the norm. Instead, cups of nacho cheese typically accompany the bread. It’s such a Western Indiana/Eastern Illinois thing and I have no idea why it is. Maybe it’s because this is how I grew up eating bread sticks but I miss this and go a little overboard every time I hit a pizza place back home that does it this way.
Main Street Diner & Pizzeria is a pretty solid small town pizza joint. I miss pizza like this. This isn’t the way pizza is made in Michigan and it’s kind of depressing. Everyone always associates Chicago with the Deep Dish pizza but this is the kind of pizza Chicagoans eat and it’s great when I can find it outside the city in the small towns where I grew up.
SW Michigan Dining 
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