Ayasofya Turkish Restaurant
1528 W. Michigan AvenueIt seems like it’s been a while since I’ve blogged about Kalamazoo restaurants. Honestly, I just haven’t eaten out much. There hasn’t been a lot of new places that have opened up that have caught my attention to where I’ve felt that I’ve had to spend what little extra money I have on lunch.
We’re out of figure skating season for the moment so that leaves me with a little extra money each week to catch up on some of the newer restaurants that have opened in Kalamazoo.
Monday night was a work night for me and it was kind of slow. I actually had time for a proper dinner break but I really didn’t know what I wanted. I started searching a little bit to see if there was something I could grab quickly but also leave me full when I was done.
I picked something that that I don’t think most people would think I would pick. A Turkish restaurant…but, there’s a twist.
Ayasofya Turkish Restaurant is on West Michigan Avenue near Burrows Road near Western Michigan University’s campus. The building was Bruno’s Pizza for a really long time until they closed in 2023. Ayasofya just about a year ago in December of 2024 after doing some renovations to the inside of the building. From the street, the restaurant looks pretty much the same but without the iconic neon sign that hung outside Bruno’s for so long.
The restaurant is a full service sit down restaurant with a pretty large dining room. The Italian murals painted on the walls and the wood paneling of Bruno’s is gone. The space has been brightened up with white walls with Turkish tapestries lit by chandeliers that replaced the ceiling fans that were once there. The tile floor remains as does the booths along the wall. I had only ever been in Bruno’s for carry-out but it always felt kind of dark to me. This new space is much brighter and more inviting though very little of it has changed. A coat of bright paint makes such a huge difference.
I put my order in online and got to the restaurant right at the time the Internet told me it would be ready. There is a counter right inside the door, which was also there when this was a pizza place but has also been brightened up a bit. I gave the guy working as kind of the host and a waiter my name and he told me it was going to be a little bit longer yet. My assumption at the time was they didn’t realize they got the online order until right before I got there. I ended up waiting about 15-20 minutes after I got there which was about 20 minutes after I ordered. I wasn’t in a super big hurry so it wasn’t that big of a deal.
If you’re still reading this and still wondering about me at a restaurant that isn’t a bar, a burger joint, or a wing place, this is where I tell you, I ordered a pizza. As I’ve mentioned several times already, Ayasofya was a pizza joint in it’s previous life and when the old owners left, they also left the pizza ovens, so this new Turkish restaurant decided to add pizza to it’s menu. The owners came here from Turkey to study at WMU and ate at Bruno’s when they were students. But, there’s a Turkish twist with the meat.
I ordered a medium Meat Lovers pizza. This pizza has the usual suspects with pepperoni, sausage, and mozzarella cheese but the twist is it also has sojouk which is spicy dry-cured Middle Eastern sausage made with beef or lamb seasoned with garlic, cumin, sumac, and red pepper. I had no idea what I was getting in to with that but I typically like most cured sausages. It did have a flavor I wasn’t used to but it was a good flavor. The thing that really surprised me about this pizza was how crispy yet soft the crust. This isn’t quite Bruno’s pizza but it’s still a pretty tasty pizza. Much better than I would have guessed from a restaurant that doesn’t specialize in pizza.
The cost of my pizza was right around $15.
Yeah, I didn’t have the full Turkish experience with this trip to Ayasofya but I got something I knew I would like with a bit of a Middle Eastern twist to it. I was kind of surprised at just how many people were eating dinner at this place on a Monday night when all of the students are gone on break. Kalamazoo has a number of different types of Middle Eastern restaurants but I don’t think there’s anything quite like this
SW Michigan Dining 