Brix Corner Oven

• 402 Eagle Street
• South Haven, MI 49090
• (269) 767-7342
• Website
• Menu

South Haven has kind of become our go-to for Labor Day weekend.  We like to go a little later in the afternoon when things to start to thin out on the beach and wait for the sunset.

We actually got to South Beach much earlier this year than we had planned.  We were just kind of sitting around the house waiting for the time to go so we said, “screw it.”  We left for South Haven just after 2:00.

We saw in Lake Michigan for almost three hours.  J was starting to get hungry but wasn’t ready to go home.  Everyone was being good so we really wanted to stick it out and try to make it to sunset.  She suggested just eating at the South Beach Cafe Snack Bar.  That really didn’t do anything for me.  I wanted more than ice cream and nachos.

We still went to the snack and got ice cream and nachos but as we were sitting there, J suggested putting in an order for pizza.  She offered to watch the kids if I’d walk up the hill to pick it up.  We found a place just at the top of the hill and surprisingly, they were actually taking carry-out orders on an incredibly busy holiday weekend.

Brix Corner Oven is on the corner of Eagle Street and Kalamazoo Street just a block of the busy Phoenix Street thoroughfare  that leads down to the beach.  The building is the old Niffenegger’s Service Station that has seen several different types of businesses in it’s day.  Before this place was a pizza restaurant, it was Sea Glass Home Decor.  The building itself hasn’t changed much, but how that space is used has undergone a drastic transformation.

Brix the perfect concept for a vacation town like South Haven.  Almost all of the seating is outside.  What used to be the parking lot for the service station is entirely fenced in and there are metal patio tables spread through the space.

A sign near the entrance points points you to a small room just off the kitchen to place an order.  There’s not much to this area.  It’s just a small counter with an iPad on top of it right in front of the cutout to the kitchen.  There are a couple of bar stools to sit on if you have to wait, but that’s about it.  The idea is that you order here then go back outside to a table with a number.  The food is brought out to you when it’s ready.

If drinks are all that you’re looking for, they also have a bar indoors and a few pub tables.  This is the only indoor seating they offer so during the non-summer months, your choice most of the time is carry-out or sitting in this bar area which has a number of local beers on tap.

We had called our order almost exactly a half hour before I got there.  The cashier had a hard time finding my pizzas because they were actually still in line to get cooked.  Remember, this was Labor Day weekend and they were slammed.  About five minutes after I got there, they actually had to start turning people away because they were so back up they were looking at almost an hour wait.  They needed to get caught up before they could start taking any more orders.

I sat there for about fifteen minutes (so, about 45 total after I had ordered) before the cashier brought me out three boxes.  I started to walk off forgetting that I hadn’t paid yet.  She didn’t remember either until I turned around to go back.  She found my order and rang up the three pizzas which cost just under $38.  I paid with my card, grabbed some paper plates and silverware, then headed back towards the beach where my hungry family was waiting.

I ordered three pizzas because these are brick oven style pizzas.  They’re very thin crust and each one is 12″.  I ordered The Meat Eater for myself.  According to the online menu, this one has a tomato sauce base with mozzarella, pepperoni, pulled pork, chorizo, and Italian sausage.  I don’t think the online menu is right anymore.  The pizza was delicious, but the only meats on it where pepperoni and Italian sausage.  There may have been some chorizo mixed in, but there definitely wasn’t any pulled pork.  The crust of the pizza was perfectly crispy and the saltiness of the various meats worked in unison with the sweetness of the sauce to produce what is almost the perfect the pizza.

J ordered the Margherita and again, the first thing we noticed is what wasn’t there.  The Margherita should have been tomato sauce, mozzarella, fresh basil, and a balsamic reduction.  The tomato sauce and mozzarella were there…including what appeared to be fresh mozzarella on top, but the basil and balsamic were missing,  It appears they forgot to finish the pizza when they took it out of the oven.  Without those missing ingredients, J still said this is one of the best pizzas she’s ever had.  It’s that really thin, crispy crust that she loves and there’s so much flavor all the way through.  The basil and balsamic would have likely pushed Brix closer to the top of her all-time favorite pizzas joints.

We didn’t think the kids would have eaten either of our pizzas so we ordered them their own.  They apparently have a kids menu, but it’s not online so we didn’t know about it. We ordered them a plain cheese pizza and it was just slightly different from the one J got.  It didn’t have the fresh mozzarella on top of the shredded cheese.  Each kid ate a little over a slice because they wanted to go back to playing in the sand.  It didn’t really bother either of us because that was just more for us to take home for later.

Brix Corner Oven is a place we won’t be forgetting the next time we go to the beach in South Haven.   There were some hiccups with this visit because of the busy holiday weekend, but we still ended up with delicious pizzas.  It kind of surprises me there aren’t more grab and go places in downtown South Haven and I didn’t expect this to be counter service when I first walked in, but knowing that now, it will make for an easy place to grab a pizza on our way out of town or a place we can bring the kids and enjoy a delicious meal while hanging out in downtown South Haven.