Wesco (Plainwell)
551 W. Allegan StreetSo, I’m clearly a sucker for gas station food.
I’m on the road a lot and a lot of times, it’s just easier. I can get gas, use a bathroom, and get a Pepsi plu something to eat all in one stop.
I was in Plainwell a couple of weeks ago and I saw a sign at the Wesco gas station advertising their Wesco Specialty Pizza for $5. I figured that sounded too good to be true but I had to give it a shot.
Last Thursday was a little bit of a hectic day. I had to do a job with my usual Kalamazoo colleague, then run to Holland to do a job with a different colleague..plus, I had to get home by 7:00 because J had evening plans and I had to pick the kids up from the rink.
I knew I was coming back through Plainwell so I decided to see about this $5 pizza.
Wesco is a chain of West Michigan gas stations that I usually stop at for popcorn. The majority of the stations are along the Lake Michigan shoreline. The only one really close to us in Kalamazoo is this Plainwell location on the corner of Allegan Street and Prince Street on the west side of Plainwell near the US-131 Interchange. It’s a pretty small lot that’s hard to get in an out of. It kind of shares a lot with the Hardings next door but even that is a tricky lot to navigate.
The inside of the store is really tight too. A lot of the other Wesco’s are big, spacious stores but this one just crams a lot in to a little space. When I got to the store, I headed to the back to grab a couple of Pepsi’s then made my way up to the counter where there was a bit of line to get my pizza.
I’ve been stopping in to this Wesco for years. Wesco has always been known for the popcorn. It’s a fairly cheap snack and I’ve made it my dinner many, many times over the years. The kids always think it’s a treat when I bring home some leftover Wesco popcorn.
When I said that a $5 pizza seemed to good to be true, it obviously was. There is a $5 Wesco Specialty pizza but it’s got onions and green peppers on it. It’s almost a bait and switch because they know very few people are actually going to order a pizza with that crap on it.
The other options are a pepperoni pizza or four meat. Both of those are not $5. They’re actually $16. The idea is to get you to the website and once you see the cheap pizza has vegetables on it, they hope you’ll buy the more expensive one….like I did.
Still, $16 isn’t awful for a pizza and I already had my mind made up that I was getting Wesco pizza so I just rolled with it.
The pizzas only come in 16″ sizes. The four meat pizza has pepperoni, ham, sausage, and bacon. Again, $16 for all that meat isn’t bad…if you can taste it.
I opened up the box to find the pizza pretty well done. I don’t mind well done pizza but this one was pushing burnt in some spots.
To be completely honest, it tasted like a gas station pizza. There’s not a ton of flavor to it but at the same time, it also wasn’t horrible. The overbrowned cheese was the dominate flavor. I really didn’t get much of any of the meats. I could see they were there but it didn’t seem to add much flavor. There was not a lot of sauce so that didn’t really bring in much flavor either. The crust and the cheese were really all that stood out.
My plans for a cheap meal were dashed by vegetables but I still ended up with a somewhat decent pizza. Had this one been cooked a little less, it might have been better but in the end, it’s gas station pizza. It is what it is and really it’s own job is to fill you up. If this pizza actually was $5, I wouldn’t hesitate to order again. As it is, I’ll probably just stick to grabbing slices when I stop in to get something to drink.
SW Michigan Dining 