Cavoni’s Pizza & Grinders (Three Rivers)
103 S. Lincoln StreetFriday nights in the fall are my late nights. I work all day then pick up some overtime at night. I’m usually in a small town somewhere by myself and I’m always looking for pizza. For some reason, most small pizza joints close at 9. You’d think they’d want that after high school football crowd but finding a pizza after 9 is hard unless I want to settle for Pizza Hut.
I was in Three Rivers last week and was wrapping up my assignment just before 9:00. I Googled pizza and found a couple of places that said they were open until 10:00. I called the one closest to me and found out Google lied so I moved on to the next one.
That next one was Cavoni’s Pizza & Grinders. I had no idea when I picked this place that it’s actually part of the Mancino’s family…as in it’s owned by descendants of Samuel Mancino’s. Cavoni was the maiden name of Frank Mancino’s mother. He opened the first Cavoni’s restaurant in 1977.
The Three Rivers location used to be the Centreville location. They moved to a small strip mall on Lincoln Street on the west side of town. It’s right on the corner of Michigan Avenue (BL-131) and Lincoln.
I called a little after 9:00 to put in my order for a large pepperoni pizza. They told me it would be about twenty minutes so I took my time getting across town to pick it up.
The restaurant is big enough to have a decent sized dining room. It’s nothing flashy. The floors are large square tiles and the walls are a simple green and white. The tables are generic restaurant tables. There’s nothing about the dining room that would make it stand from any other local pizza place but it is comfortable and it would be easy to enjoy a family dinner after a long day.
The restaurant is counter service even if you’re dining in. There’s a small order counter at the back of the restaurant next to a window looking in to a kitchen. I headed back there right away to pay up and wait for my pizza. I was a few minutes early so I paid the check then took a seat to wait.
It wasn’t long before I was being handed a box with my pizza. I headed to my car to head back toward Kalamazoo. I did have to stop and eat one slice in the parking lot just because I was pretty hungry.
The pizza was pretty well done so it had a nice golden brown sheen to it. At some points, it was hard to tell where the crust ended and the cheese began. There were a lot of pepperoni’s which meant a lot of pepperoni grease to seep on top of the cheese. I love that greasy combination of pepperoni and cheese grease that gets released in the cooking. I know it’s not healthy but it so darn tasty.
The crust is thin for a take-out pizza but not cracker thin like I really like. There was a nice crunch to the outer ring and the middle held on pretty well to the toppings that slid towards the middle when I picked it up.
Cavoni’s Pizza & Grinders was much better than I was expecting. I had never heard of the place and am even a little more surprised now that I see it’s owned by the Mancino family. There are a few other stores in the area including ones in Hillsdale and Battle Creek so I don’t think this will be the last time I will have a Cavoni’s pizza.
SW Michigan Dining 
And the grinders are the best you’ll find!!
Will definitely give one a shot next time I stop in.
The one in Hillsdale is pretty good, and it’s one of the better dining options there (not there’s much in the way of non-chain options to choose from). But I never regretted eating there.
Most people go there for the pretty big grinders, I don’t know if I ever had the pizza oddly enough. It’s been there for a good… 20 years now or around that? If the other locations are anything like the Hillsdale one (and it sure looks and reads like it) they’re always a solid option.
I had no idea when I ordered. I had never heard of the place before so I just got a pizza. I definitely know for next time.