Papa’s Pizzeria
69045 M-62 #12It’s that time of year that I start working double shifts on Friday nights. I know it sounds weird to enjoy working a double on Friday but the second half of the shift, I’m doing something I really like doing. The rest of the day, I just have to do my usual day job which I don’t really like all that much.
The Friday night shifts take me all around Southwest Michigan. Some weeks, I’ll stay close to Kalamazoo. Others, I’ll almost be in Indiana.
Last Friday was one of those “Almost be in Indiana” nights.
I had to go to Edwardsburg which is quite a ways from Kalamazoo with no real easy way to get there. I’ve only made this trek a handful of times over the years and I don’t usually have time for dinner.
I’ve tried in the past to put in a pizza order on the way down but the town’s only pizzeria is pretty slammed on Friday nights. I’ve made the mistake in the past of waiting until I was 20 minutes out thinking that would be enough time to cook a pizza. The wait has always been over an hour.
This time, I got a little smarter. I ordered the pizza when I was about an hour away…and it worked out perfectly
Papa’s Pizzeria is M-62 just north of Elkhart Road kind of in the center in Edwardsburg. The small shop in the Village Commons strip mall is the small town’s only pizzeria.
The pizzeria is carry-out and delivery only. The small shop only has an order counter and a couple of chairs to sit and wait. It’s connected to the shop next door which is a sandwich and ice cream parlor. They have a little seating but unsure of the arrangement.
Papa’s Pizzeria doesn’t have online ordering so I had to call my order in. Like I mentioned, I did so when I got off I-94 at the M-51 exit. That’s about an hour drive and when I called to order, they gave me an estimated time of an hour and five minutes.
I walked in the door almost exactly an hour later. I still had to pay for the pizza, which I did with my card, and when the lady went to the kitchen to see if it was ready, they were just closing the lid on the box. Perfect timing.
I ordered a 16″ Meat Lovers pizza. As the name implies, the pizza is covered with pepperoni, ham, ground beef, sausage, salami and bacon.
There or so many toppings underneath the thick layer of cheese that meat starts to curl out from under the cheese. The dough, sauce, and the cheese blend is all made in house daily and it’s one of those pizzas where you really can tell the difference.
The cost for my pizza was right around $26 before tip.
I have tried stopping at Papa’s Pizzeria every time I’ve been in Edwardsburg over the last few years and it’s never worked out. It worked out this time and it was worth the wait. I think it was the thick layer of cheese that really did it for me. It kind of held everything together.
I love small town pizzerias. You either get meh or you get something that you weren’t expecting. I got the latter here. Papa’s Pizzeria is the kind of place you miss when you move away and you go to pizza place after pizza place in your new hometown looking for something similar…but you never find it.
SW Michigan Dining 