Franco’s Italian Pizzeria
8022 S. Westnedge AvenueIt seems like it’s been a while since I’ve actually had pizza on a Friday night. It’s a staple most of the year but Friday’s in the fall are overtime opportunities for me at work. I’m not home for dinner and I don’t usually want cold pizza after working a 12 hour day so I find something else to eat when I get time.
I actually had a bit of time last Friday between my regular shift and my overtime shift. I was heading to Portage so I figured I could just pick something up on Westnedge on my way.
I got an idea when I stopped at the Meijer for gas. I have time to order a pizza and there’s a longstanding pizzeria under new ownership that I have had in a long time.
Franco’s’ Italian Pizzeria is on South Westnedge just to the south of Centre Street near Portage Central High School. The small, family owned pizzeria was owned by the same family for the first forty years of it’s existence under the name Franco’s Sub Station and Italian Pizzeria. The restaurant’s namesake retired last year and sold the business to another family who altered the name a bit but kept a lot of the recipes and menu items that people have come to know over the years.
Franco’s was one of the first pizza places recommended to us when we moved to Kalamazoo in 2009. People have loved this place for years. I wasn’t overly impressed with the first pizza I got from there. It was fine but I wrote at the time, “Franco’s was good, but not really unique.” We’re kind of pizza snobs and like a really specific kind of tavern style pizza from Chicago. Franco’s is a hand tossed pizza. We tried it a few more times over the years and it grew on me a little more but after we moved to Oshtemo, it was too far away to grab pizzas from regularly.
I hopped on the website as I was sitting at the Meijer filling up my tank to see if they had online ordering. They do, which is something the original Franco’s did not have. I put in an order for a 16″ sausage and pepperoni thin crust. The cost was just under $22 and the ordering system said it would be ready about the time I finished up what I was doing and make the drive down Westnedge.
I got to the restaurant almost exactly on time for what my order had said. There is an order counter right as you walk in the door. Like most pizzerias, it provides a glimpse into the kitchen so you can watch the pizzas being made. I gave the girl working the counter my name and I heard a voice come from the oven saying he was pulling that one out right now. I just had to wait for it to be boxed up and handed over.
I was grabbing my pizza to go but there is a small dining room off to the left of the counter. There are just a handful of tables but the real reason to at least peak in here is to get a look at the mural on the wall. When the new owners took over, they honored the legacy of pizzeria with a mural featuring the original owners, Franco and Francesca Impellizzeri.
I grabbed my box and headed to the job site. I knew it had come right out of the oven so I had to give it a few minutes to get set up. I wasn’t that far away from where I was going so I really had to be patient and not bite in to a slice that I knew was going to burn my mouth.
I ordered the thin crust pizza and chose to have it cut into a party cut, or into squares. The first thing I noticed when I opened the box, the guy who made the pizza noticed the party cut option checked after he cut it in to triangles then tried to rectify the situation by just cutting it in to squares. There were a lot of odd shaped pieces. I got a bit of a chuckle out of that. It didn’t really affect much other than making it a little awkward to eat at times.
The pizza was pretty similar to what I remember from my previous Franco’s experiences. The hand tossed dough was stretched a little thinner than their regular crust. There was a mound of cheese that was having a hard time sticking to the sauce. That sauce was delicious though. It was kind of sweet, kind of bitter and soaked up some of the saltiness from the pepperoni and sausage. There were big pinches of Italian sausage on each bite and crispy around the edges pepperoni throughout. This is one of those pizzas you really need to give some time to cool down or you’ll end up with a mess of cheese and sauce on your chin. I could have went for this being in the oven a bit longer (I did check the box for “well done”) so it had a little more crispiness to the crust but overall, this was a pretty solid and really delicious pizza.
Franco’s Italian Pizzeria carries on the tradition of quality local pizza. I’ve been hot and cold on this pizza place over the years because we really do prefer a pretty specific type of pizza. If you like the crust a little doughier and a little thicker, this is a place you will really enjoy. Even though it’s not a super thin, crispy crust, I still really liked this pizza and had the whole thing polished off before my shift ended.
SW Michigan Dining 
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