Pig-N-Pizza
60010 Corey Lake RoadOne of my favorite weekends of the year is when my whole family comes up to Michigan for a weekend. My dad’s cousin (so, my second cousin) has a house on Pleasant Lake and all the cool toys. Her whole family comes up to so it’s a pretty big group of people.
Having that large of a group makes it really hard to find a weekend where every one is free. My brother’s kids both play softball so they’re busy a lot of the summer. My kids skate so we’re busy. The other families have their own things going on as well.
Unfortunately, the last three years, the only weekend every one is available is the weekend of our figure skating competition in Kalamazoo. We’ve made it work. I take Friday off so we have all day at the lake, we skate on Saturday then go back for another day on Sunday.
This year, J and L didn’t do Sunday. They were leaving for Lake Placid, NY for, you guessed it, a figure skating competition. B wasn’t going to to this one and since I work during the week, he was staying at grandma and grandpa’s near Sturgis.
The day at the lake ended on kind of a sour note. My (third-cousin?) told B he’d take him out on the tube after lunch. Everyone was tired and it was hot. Our hosts started cleaning up and preparing to get ready to go home. B didn’t get to tube and he was kind of bummed about it. I wasn’t going to make him stay any longer and try to put on a happy face because I knew he was disappointed. Disappointed about not getting to go to Lake Placid and disappointed about not getting to tube. I felt for him.
We left Three Rivers around 3:00 and headed east towards Centreville where my in-laws live. I dropped him off and hung out for a little bit. I think he was ready to get rid of me to (I think he was blaming me for not getting to tube), so I said good-bye and started back towards Kalamazoo.
My plan was to pick a pizza up along the way. There’s a place in Centreville I’ve been wanting to stop at but they’re closed on Sunday’s. I actually headed back to Three Rivers because there’s a place over there as well.
Pig-N-Pizza is on Corey Lake Road and Born Street between Corey Lake and Harwood Lake in Newberg Township west of Three Rivers. The shop is kind of an island in a very rural part of the landscape right on the Cass and St. Joseph County Line. The shop has been around for a while as a pizza place. It was Appoloni’s Ristorante e Pizzeria for several years, but they closed a few years back and Pig-N-Pizza, a hybrid BBQ joint / pizzeria opened in it’s place.
It’s no secret I really prefer online ordering to calling an order an in. I get that online ordering takes a cut from the business, but it’s so much easier. As I was sitting in my in-laws driveway, I decided to call in the order. I dialed the number and it told me to press 1 to place an order. I pressed it…and pressed it again…and again…and again and it just kept bringing me back to the same one option menu to press 1 to place an order.
I almost gave up, but I hung up, gave it a second and tried again. This time it only took me three times pressing 1 until I finally got a message that I was being connected to someone.
I put in an order for a 16″ thin crust 3 Meat BBQ Treat Pizza. Not gonna lie, I was tempted to just order BBQ and skip the pizza even though I wanted pizza. This let me get some BBQ and some pizza.
The restaurant has changed a little since it was Appoloni’s. Most of the changes are cosmetic. They get rid of what was a somewhat stereotypical Italian restaurant with white table clothes and muted tones on the walls and replaced it with a kind of BBQ roadhouse. Paint colors were changed to red and the table clothes went from white to gingham. This portion of the restaurant is full service with a wait staff. There is a pick up counter right as you walk in which also has an ice cream cooler.
The 16″ pizza was right around $25. I paid for it on my card then grabbed the box and headed home.
I wasn’t really hungry at the time but I knew I would be later. I was just going to order a 12″ but since I’m home alone, I knew this was going to be more than one meal.
The thin crust is a pretty thin crust pizza with a little bit of bite to it all the way through to the middle. There’s a menu option that says “Chicago style Cut in Squares” which is probably what I should have ordered but I saw “Chicago Style” and thought deep dish, not Tavern pizza.
This pizza was loaded with meat. The three meats are brisket, pulled pork, and smoked chicken adn ther’s a lot each on the pizza. The base is a BBQ sauce instead of a pizza sauce so it gives the pizza a really rich sweetness. The smoked BBQ all had great flavor and a level of smokiness that permeated each bite. This is a pizza that you really need to eat while it’s hot. There was a really big difference between the fresh pizza I took a bite of in the parking lot of the restaurant and the cold pizza I ate the next morning for breakfast. It was still good both ways but it was much better right out of the oven.
I liked Appoloni’s pizza the one time we had it but I think this is a much better pizza. I’m curious about the option to cut in squares though as that really is the best way to eat pizza. There’s also a huge sandwich menu and everything I saw coming out of the kitchen looked really good. There’s more to try here than pizza but as a pizza place, this one is perfect lake pizza. Grab a couple of boxes and sit outside and watch the sunset.
SW Michigan Dining 