Milano’s Pizza
215 N. 17th StreetBack to Friday night pizza!
Yes, it was pizza two nights in a row. I stopped at Five Star Pizza in Union City on my way home from work on Thursday night then Friday night, I got sent to Niles for my Friday night overtime shift.
Honestly though, I could eat pizza pretty much every night of the week.
There are several pizza options in Niles but only one local place I could find that had online ordering. Guess which one I picked based only on the criteria that I wouldn’t have to talk to anyone on the phone.
Milano’s Pizza is on the corner of 17th Street and Sycamore Street not too far from Niles High School. It’s kind of an odd spot because it’s not really a commercial area. The restaurant is kind of an outlier is a pretty much residential neighborhood. My GPS kept saying I was close and I was wondering if the GPS got it wrong. The GPS did not get it wrong though. There is a pizza place on this corner right next to a foot doctor and surrounded by a neighborhood.
I put in my order for a pizza and breadsticks before I left Kalamazoo. Being a Friday night, I expected it would take at least an hour. The online ordering told me it would take about 55 minutes and my drive was 65 minutes so it was a really good thing I put that order in before leaving town.
The restaurant is carry-out and delivery only. The public space inside is just a room with no furniture and a long order counter that looks like it’s been recently redone. It took a few minutes for someone to acknowledge the five of us that were standing there and to start handing out pizzas.
I did something I don’t normally do and it was a mistake, but it was a tasty mistake. I saw “Bread Sticks with Cheese” on the menu and I assumed we were close enough to Indiana that these were bread sticks served with nacho cheese to dip in….something I’ve been told is an Indiana thing…although I grew up in East Central Illinois and it was popular there too. I was wrong though. It was cheese stuffed bread sticks…more like Bosco Sticks. These big, soft, fluffy break sticks are topped with a garlic butter and seasonings and come with a marinara cup for dipping. It’s not what I was expecting, but these were really good.
The pizza I ordered was the 14″ All Meat…which is what I usually order when I’m on my own.
The pizza has a thinner than normal carry-out crust and it’s topped with sauce, cheese, pepperoni, sausage, ground beef, ham, and bacon. There’s not a ton of meat on the pizza but there’s enough so you get all four of them in almost every bite. The combination of meat makes the pizza a little saltier than normal but a little sweetness in the sauce tames that somewhat. The pizza is cut into 12 slices instead of the traditional 8. I hadn’t eaten lunch yet that day and I was concerned a 14″ pizza wasn’t going to be enough but I didn’t even eat half. I ended up with tasty leftovers for breakfast the next day.
The cost for bread sticks and pizza was just under $30.
The only reason I picked Milano’s Pizza was because they had online ordering. I was just hoping for a decent, filling pizza. I got that and more. It’s fairly easy to see why Milano’s has been a Niles staple for the last 50 years.
SW Michigan Dining 