GJ’s Pizza and Market

• 2700 Holiday Road
• Traverse City, MI 49686
• (231) 938-2700
• Website
• Menu

Busy week.   

I spent three days in Mackinac Island for work then I headed straight from Mackinaw City Thursday night to Traverse City.  My kids had a figure skating competition so I just used a vacation day, drove my own car to Mackinaw, then headed straight from the Ferry Docks to my hotel in Traverse.  

I got to town just before 8:00 and I was really hungry.  I actually still had some work to do but my plan was to sit on the balcony of our hotel and watch the sunset, eat dinner, and finish my work.  

J and the kids drove up after school so they were already in Traverse City a few hours before I got there.   They stopped at a Culvers along the way for dinner so no one else was hungry.  

That meant I could order a pizza.  

I found GJ’s Pizza and Market not too far from my hotel on Holiday Road and Five Mile Road on the east side of Travers City in Acme Township.   The small store is on the corner by itself and serves the area as a party/convenience store as well as a pizza joint.  

They have online ordering which made my task of getting dinner much easier. I put in the order when I was about a half hour away hoping it would be ready when I got there.

GJ’s Pizza and Market is mostly a convenience type store. The small space squeezes in several aisles of snacks which is surrounded by coolers loaded with beer alongside the typical convenience store drink selection. I grabbed a couple of Pepsi’s to go along with my pizza then headed to the counter.

The pizza pick up counter is just the main cash register at the front of the store. My pizza wasn’t quite ready yet so I just paid for the drinks and waited. I had already paid for the pizza through Door Dash so I didn’t have to worry about that.

If you don”t want a whole pizza, next to the cash register is a warming oven for slices.

It was pretty late on a Thursday night but there were still some options for drop ins. I’m sure this is full during typical meal hours.

It took a few more minutes for the pizza to come out, which was fine, I wasn’t in a hurry. I ordered a 16″ pepperoni pizza. The cost was a little over $26 which was more than I was looking to pay but the pizza looked so good, I went with it anyway.

I got to the hotel and set up on the balcony to finish the work I needed to get done. I popped open the box and found the pizza that I was hoping to see after seeing some pictures on Google. It’s very similar to what I know as a Chicago Tavern Pizza. Thin crust cut in to squares…or party cut, as you native Michiganders like to call it.

I got a large pizza thinking I’d share it with the family…but no. I ate it all. This is very, very reminiscent of a Chicago Tavern pizza right down to the sauce. The crust could have been crispier but the rest of it was delicious. It’s a thick, sweet sauce covered in a layer of perfectly golden brown cheese. The pepperoni’s were underneath the cheese which gives the sauce even more flavor from the grease running off and mixing with the marinara. This was a really tasty pizza.

I felt bad that I didn’t share but I was hungry and this pizza was just too good. We actually ordered pizza a couple more times on this trip and the only reason I didn’t go back was the price. It’s really good pizza, but ordering more than one is kind of a bank breaker on an weekend that we know we’re going to be eating out a lot. If I lived nearby though, this would be an every week pizza for me for sure.