Benito’s Pizza Cafe (Novi)
24270 Novi RoadI’ve worked a lot of extra hours the last few months. It’s just the nature of the beast.
Some relief came last week as some of the work winds down for the season. I still had one really long (almost 24 straight hours) of work left before a big chunk of it would be over.
I knew it was going to be a long day with little time to eat so I made sure to eat a big breakfast at Wolfgang’s Restaurant in Grand Rapids before I picked up a colleague to drive to the Detroit area for the night.
It was another one of those days that we had to be there early to get all of our equipment set up but then we’d have some down time. My colleague ordered Chipotle from Door Dash but we had some time so I decided to go with pizza. I could eat some now and then eat the rest when I got back to my hotel room long after most restaurants have closed.
We were in Novi and I’m not really familiar with restaurants there. I loved Primanti Bros. but it has closed since the last time I was in Novi a couple of years ago. I started looking for pizzas near me and a couple of good looking options popped up.
I went with Benito’s Pizza Cafe on Novi Road just north of 10 Mile Road in Novi. The restaurant is part of a small shopping center on the east side of the road that also has Penn Station East Coast Subs and a gym. The Novi location, part of the Benito’s chain that started with a single shop in Belleville in the late 1970’s has been in this location since the Mid-2000’s.
The restaurant has some seating inside. There used to be seating on either side of the entrance but only one side is used now. The other side looked like it was just storing empty pizza boxes. The pick up area is like that of any pizza place. Not much room and just a counter with the kitchen behind and boxes upon boxes of pizzas being cranked out.
I put my order in online for a medium thin crust Meat Special pizza and a side of Benito Bread. The cost was right around $30 before tip.
I started with the Benito Bread. My plan all along was to save most of the pizza for later. I like cold pizza and I really like cold pizza at 2 AM when there’s nothing else open so I didn’t want to eat all of it for dinner.
The Benito Bread is essentially bread sticks covered with mozzarella cheese, garlic butter and Parmesan. There was a lot of golden brown cheese on the top and a strong garlicky flavor that dominated. The bread came with some marinara for dipping but I had eaten most of the bread heading back to my hotel a few miles away. It was so good on it’s own, it didn’t really need the marinara sauce.
The pizza I ordered was a thin crust Meat Special. It comes topped with pepperoni, ham, bacon, Italian sausage, and ground beef. I also added the Parmesan crust. That’s something I really like but my family really doesn’t so I can never do it when I get pizzas with them (Sorry for the potato picture here)
There was a lot of meat on this pizza. There were big chunks of sausage and the edges of the ham and pepperoni had charred edges giving the pizza even more flavor. The crust stayed pretty crispy despite all the meat and all the grease from the meat on top of it. It was a pretty fabulous pizza.
I had never heard of Benito’s Pizza Cafe before I stumbled upon them online while looking for pizza near me on Google. There are 17 store in Michigan, all on the east side, and one in Yuma, AZ.
Pizza is so finnicky. All pizza is good but some pizzas just rise above others. Benito’s was delicious. There were a lot of options in Novi and I’m glad this is the one I chose.
SW Michigan Dining 