Casey’s (54th Street)
I grew up in a small town in Illinois. My first job out of college was in Peoria. Like my current job, I did a lot of travel around the region.
GPS wasn’t quite as prevalent in those days. I got one my last couple of years in the job but before that, I had to print out Mapquest directions from stop to stop and try to read them while driving.
Getting directions verbally from someone who knew where they were going was also pretty common. Also common, being told to turn at the Casey’s…because every small town in Illinois had a Casey’s and it seemed like you always turned at the Casey’s no matter where you were going.
Casey’s weren’t really a thing in Michigan until recently. The first one in Southwest Michigan opened in Watervliet about seven years ago. Since then, they’ve slowly been making their way up I-94 towards Kalamazoo.
Casey’s got a huge boost in presence when they bought the Grand Rapids area Kum & Go stores. They went from zero stores in Grand Rapids to eight pretty much overnight.
I had to work a couple of shifts in Grand Rapids last week and I was super excited to get my hands on that Casey’s pizza.
The store I ended up stopping at is the one closest to US-131 on 54th Street in Wyoming. This is actually an old Maverick store and not actually branded a Kum & Go. Maverick had bought the Kum & Go chain before they sold these stores to Casey’s. It’s a fairly new gas station having been built in just the last couple of years. It’s right on the corner of 54th Street and Clyde Park Avenue right as you get off the highway on the west side of the interchange.
The branding and design of Casey’s has changed a lot over the last few years. They were always known as Casey’s General Stores. The store designs were always the same. Red brick buildings with a red sign that stretched the length of the store. The newer build stores drop the General Store name but kind of keep the same motif. Since these Grand Rapids area stores were not built as Casey’s, they have a much different look and feel.
The store on 54th Street in Wyoming is easily one of the nicest Casey’s I’ve ever been in. I was never in this location when it was a Maverick but I assume a lot of the design is from the Maverick store. The set up is gas station convenience store with aisles of snacks throughout the building but the floors are tile and the ceilings are the exposed metal frame of the building. The store was super clean and didn’t feel like the small town Casey’s I’ve visited most of my adult life.
Casey’s pizza has always been the best gas station pizza in my mind. I used to eat it a lot when I lived in Peoria. There was a Casey’s near my office so we’d order it quite a bit.
There is a large kitchen area near the back of the store. They don’t have order kiosks like the Kum & Go’s used to have but there are ready made food in warming ovens like a typical gas station stop.
I didn’t have time for a whole pizza though but I was super happy to see they had slices in the rotating warming oven. I grabbed a slice of pepperoni and a slice of sausage.
Casey’s has things other than pizza, but to tell you the truth, I’m not sure I’ve had anything other than pizza. The kids and J have grabbed chicken from Casey’s in the past and I’ve tried it…it’s fine, but really it’s the pizza that makes me want one of these close to home.
I grabbed a couple of bottles of Pepsi on my way to the cash register. The cost for two slices of pizza and two Pepsi’s was just under $10.
I picked the pepperoni slice off the cardboard triangle it had melted to as soon as I got back in the car. A lot of my love for Casey’s is probably nostalgia but it’s also really good gas station pizza. I always get one slice of pepperoni just out of habit. I’ve always like pepperoni and I’ve always like Casey’s pepperoni.
The other slice I got was the sausage. I actually like this pizza better. The sausages are little balls and there are a lot of them on each slice. I’m not usually a huge sausage person but when it comes to Casey’s, the sausage slices are usually my favorite.
There are 7 other Casey’s in Grand Rapids and I’m sure you’ll get stuck reading a blog post about most of them at some point. On top of that, ground has already been broke for a Casey’s in Hartford and there are plans for one in Portage….so yeah, you’re going to see more Casey’s blog. They have some full pizzas that I need to order and maybe…maybe…at some point, I’ll branch out to something other than pizza.
SW Michigan Dining 