Little Caesars Express (Zeeland)
5 W. Main StreetHow many times have I said it? I wasn’t planning on buying lunch/dinner at work.
My colleague and I were in Zeeland Monday night for an assignment. We had some down time and I had to find a bathroom. My usual go-to in Zeeland is the 7Eleven on the Business Loop near the I-196 Interchange. I started to head there from downtown but something else caught my eye and made me do a double take.
I swung back around to the J & H Family Store on the corner of West Main Street and South State Street just to the west of downtown Zeeland. It’s not totally uncommon for J & H stores to have some kind of chain restaurant inside of them. Some do. Some don’t. But this one in Zeeland has something I have never seen before. A Little Caesars Express. I wasn’t planning on getting dinner but I couldn’t pass this up.
I have never seen this before. A Little Caesars inside a gas station. It’s essentially just gas station pizza like you would get from a Hunt Brothers or Hot Stuff pizza but it’s Little Caesars. There’s a kiosk set up in the back corner of the store with a couple of warming ovens filled with Little Caesars pizza.
The thing about this concept is it’s not a full on Little Caesars restaurant. You can’t put an order in on the app and the menu is limited to pretty much Hot ‘n Ready items. They had pizza, Italian cheese bread and wings ready at 6:00 on a Monday night. There wasn’t any place to put in an order if you wanted something different so you’re pretty much at the mercy of whatever is ready at that moment.
There is a display off to the right of the pizza warming boxes with cups of marinara sauce and ranch if you’re grabbing something that needs a dip.
I didn’t want a whole pizza…and I don’t really love Little Caesars regular crust pizzas anyway, so I grabbed a box of Italian Cheese bread. I added a couple of Pepsi’s from the convenience store side of things and headed to the cash register to pay. The cost was right around ten bucks for two Pepsi’s and the Cheese bread.
The Italian Cheese Bread is kind of like a Detroit Style Pizza. It’s a rectangle shape with a very deep crust with a crispy outer edge. The bread is covered in cheese and Italian spices. I grabbed a cup of marinara to dip the bread in to. I don’t think I’ve ever had this from Little Caesars before and I was pleasantly surprised at how good it was. It’s really simple, bread and cheese, but it’s a classic combination that always works for me. This was a way better option than a whole pizza. It was easier to eat sitting in my car in a parking lot in downtown Zeeland and I didn’t end up wearing grease all over my shirt like I likely would have with a pepperoni pizza.
I don’t know if this is a new concept or just something I hadn’t seen before but Little Caesars Hot ‘n Ready in a gas station is certainly a unique way of doing gas station pizza. I’ve been pretty open on this blog about not really loving Little Caesars. I get it more for the price than anything and that really works in this setting. There are gas stations where you pay just as much for a personal sized pizza as you would for a whole one from this Little Caesars Express. I wouldn’t be surprised if these start popping up at more J & H Family Stores and it’s something I definitely wouldn’t be mad about.
SW Michigan Dining 