Corktown Pizza & Pub
1965 WaaBizhish DriveSorry, ya’ll. The next month is going to be a lot of me on the road.
My June is super busy with travel. I’ll probably be in hotel beds more than I’ll be in my own bed most of this month starting with the final week in May.
Memorial Day started my annual work trip to Mackinac Island. I decided to take a kind of roundabout way to get to Mackinaw City because I wanted to check out some things along the way.
I decided to go up through Bellaire, Charlevoix, and Petoskey. A lot of times I’ll go as far as Kalkaska and kind of cut through the country so this really wasn’t too far out of my way.
I told myself I wasn’t going to plan a meal break. I was just going to drive and stop when I saw something that piqued my interest.
Unfortunately, that didn’t happen. I got to Petoskey and started to panic. I was getting hungry so I pulled off the road and started looking for pizza.
I found a place that looked good and had online ordering so that’s what I ended up ordering.
Corktown Pizza & Pub is south of Petoskey in Bear Creek Township. The address is on WaaBizish Drive but you’ll see it from US 131 near the intersection with Lears Road right across the street from Odawa Casino. The restaurant shares a building with the Buffalo Wild Wings and, as I’d soon find out, a kitchen.
I was really confused when I pulled in to the parking lot from the backside of the building. I knew I was in Buffalo Wild Wings parking lot but I didn’t see the building for Corktown at first. It got me thinking, is this a “Ghost Kitchen?”
It’s not but there’s a story here. Corktown Pizza & Pub isn’t technically a chain restaurant because this is the only location….BUT…the business was born from Detroit Style Pizza Co. which sells pizzas on Goldbelly. The founder of that company died in 2020 and in 2021, the restaurant group Patton Wings, which operates dozens of Buffalo Wild Wings locations, bought the franchising rights to Detroit Style Pizza Co.. The trademark eventually expired and the restaurant was launched as Corktown Pizza & Pub with the idea to expand the concept. This one in Petoskey opened in September of 2022 after Buffalo Wild Wings moved in to a new building with extra space.
OK. Now we got the background out of the way thanks to the Petoskey News-Review, let’s move on to the food.
I put in my order online for an order of the DOH Tots, a small Motown Meat Lover pizza and two bottles of Pepsi. The cost for the food was right around $30 before tip.
Like I mentioned earlier, I was a little confused when I got to the building and all I saw was branding for Buffalo Wild Wings. I did notice a carry-out area that had small signs for Corktown Pizza & Pub but again, at that point, I still didn’t know where the building was.
I went in to the front door once I found it to find a pretty large sports bar type dining area. The space is separated from Buffalo Wild Wings but they’re connected via door at the back as they do share restrooms. The majority of the tables are pub like tables with some booths along the outer wall. There are TV’s on every wall and the place feels a little like a B-Dubs but it still has it’s own identity as a kind of pizza sports pub.
I realized I was going to need to go back outside and go in the carry-out door to pick up my pizza. There were two windows in the very small carry-out area and from here, you can see how the kitchen is shared between the two brands. The pizza carry-out counter looks in to the dining room while BWW’s looks in to the kitchen. The idea of two windows is kind of funny because the same people work both of them and it was actually someone standing at the B-Dubs carryout window who asked me for my name and got my pizza.
I still had about a 45 minute drive to Mackinaw City so ordering the DOH Tots was actually a strategic move. I ordered something I knew I’d be able to eat right away while driving.
The DOH Tots are small pizza dough bites covered with Parmesan cheese. The order is much larger than I expected. The Tots were pretty tasty and much easier to eat than bread sticks…but they still tasted like bread sticks. These were a good choice and I actually had the foil pan finished before I got to the far side of Petoskey.
I couldn’t wait to get to my hotel to dig in to my pizza. The Detroit style 4-slice Motown Meat Lover pizza is topped with pepperoni cups, smoked bacon, Italian sausage, smoked ham and pizza sauce.
Listen, I’m from Chicago. I will argue with you all day about pizza. I will die on the hill Chicago Tavern Style pizza is the best pizza in the world…but I do really like Detroit Style pizza.
There was a lot more sauce on this pizza than I was expecting and that’s a plus. The sauce was really good. It was really thick, kind of chunky, and just slightly spicy. There was a ton of meat on each slice. The pepperoni was just fine…it was the stuff that gets super crispy and cups up but it was still crunchy around the edges. The crust had that perfect crispy, buttery edge to it. It was just a really tasty pizza and I wish I would have ordered the large.
This pizza place wasn’t even on my radar but I’m happy I found it. Detroit style pizza is so good and I was surprised to find such a tasty pizza so far north.
As far as I can tell, they haven’t opened any more stores but I wouldn’t be angry if these start popping up around the state alongside some Buffalo Wild Wings.
SW Michigan Dining 