Speedy Cafe (Portage)
507 W. Milham AvenueFriday nights in the fall are my favorite. There’s an overtime shift available to me that I really can use and it’s pretty easy work so I take it pretty much every week until December.
All of that started last week for me. I finished my regular shift then headed out for the overtime shift.
I travel around quite a bit on these overtime shifts and for the longest time, I would use it as an excuse to find new pizza places in new towns. Friday night is pizza night after all.
This past week, I was in Portage for two different assignments. I didn’t have a lot of time between my regular shift and my overtime shift so I figured I’d just eat afterwards.
There aren’t many pizza places in Portage that I haven’t ordered from and the ones that I haven’t ordered from in a while closed before my shift ended.
That’s ok, I had another idea.
I really have come to like the pizzas from the Speedy Cafe’s and there was one not too far from where I was.
The Speedy Cafe on Milham Avenue to the west of Westnedge Avenue is part of the Speedway gas station that has been there for years. The store was remodeled in 2018 to add the cafe section instead of just having prepared foods like most Speedway’s do.
I stopped in after my overtime shift last and….the cafe was closed. 10 PM and the cafe was already closed.
The next night my kids had an event at Wings Event Center. I left there just before nine and was really hungry. Since I already had the Speedy Cafe’s pizza on the brain, I decided to give it another shot. 9:15, the cafe is closed.
I was getting really frustrated with Speedway at this point. When these Cafe’s started going in, they were 24 hours. It was a great spot to get a late night meal but now it seems like they all close by 8 PM and it’s super frustrating for a 24 hour gas station to not have this option available 24 hours.
I decided to give it one more try over the long holiday weekend. We went to J’s parents in St. Joseph County but I had to come back and work on Monday. Instead of making everyone go home early, I just left them there on Sunday evening, went to work early Monday morning, then went back to pick them up when I got off work around noon.
As I was coming home Sunday night, I figured I’d give the Speedy Cafe one more chance. It was kind of out of my way but I was hungry and they had a deal on pizza that was worth the extra time.
When I walked in to the gas station Sunday evening around 6 PM, the cafe at the back of the convenience store was actually open!
I went up to the kiosk to put in my order. I quickly navigated to the pizza section and chose a thin crust all meat pizza and a thin crust pepperoni. It was just me eating but they had a Buy 1 Thin Crust Pizza, Get One for $1. I knew I’d eat on these pizzas for a few days.
While I really like these Speedy Cafe’s to order pizza, I do stop in to the Texas Township one all the time just to grab something quickly. Like most Speedway locations, this one also has those quick grab and go options.
They have a warming case full of sandwiches. My favorite is the Spicy Chicken and Cheese. It’s not the greatest chicken sandwich in the world but it is tasty. I grab this one a couple of times a week when I’m in need for a quick lunch.
They also do pizza by the slice. This can actually be a really good meal deal. You can got a 20 oz. pop and two slices of pizza for $5. I’ve done that several times when I needed something quick and cheap. For some reason though, the pizza in the warmers always tastes different than the pizza you can freshly made. Not a bad different. Just different.
And it wouldn’t be a convenience store without a roller grill. I can’t tell you how many times my dinner has been two Steak and Cheese Tornados. Unfortunately, there gets to be a point in the day where the roller grill is the only hot food the stores have so the choices get really limited.
I grabbed a couple of Pepsi then headed to pay. You have to take the ticket printout from the kiosk and pay at the register. I had three Pepsi Zeros (that were 3 for $6) plus my BOGO for $1 Thin Crust pizzas. The cost came out to just over $20.
I have never had the thin crust pizza from Speedway before so this was going to be something new. I have had their regular crust pizza several times from the Speedy Cafe’s and really like it.
The thin crust pizza is really thin. The crust had a pretty good bite to it all the way though. I started with the All Meat pizza when I got home which is literally just all the meats they have for pizzas.
I know everything is pre-made and pre-weighed but I have to appreciate how loaded this pizza is for what it is. There is a lot of small chunks of sausage between the crispy slices of pepperoni. The sauce doesn’t have a ton of flavor to it but there is a lot of it which helps hold the cheese on. The edges of the crust are really crispy and have a lot of snap to them. The slices aren’t quite a NY Style slice but you can eat them like one thanks to this crust.
I saved the pepperoni pizza for the next morning and even cold, this pizza was still really tasty. The cheese was cooked to a delicious golden brown and was amplified by the grease that dripped off the pepperoni.
I’m still so annoyed that the Speedy Cafe’s in the area aren’t open until at least midnight but I really miss the 24 hour ones. It took me three days of stopping at this gas station to find it open and even then it felt like they were starting to clean up for the day.
I’ve always liked the pizza from Speedway. It’s pretty decently priced and it’s really tasty for what it is….gas station pizza. As long as I can find a Speedy Cafe open, I will keep ordering pizzas from them.
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