Bimbo’s Pizza
338 E. Michigan AvenueLet’s talk about pizza.
I grew up near Chicago so most people would think I’m going to defend Chicago deep dish as the best style of pizza.
Most people are wrong. I do like an occasional delicious pie from Lou Malnati’s, Pequod’s or Gino’s East but I will die on the hill that south side tavern pizza is far superior. Places like Palermo’s 95th and Vito & Nick’s with their cracker thin crust are literally the best pizzas on the planet.
J was really the one that introduced me to this style of pizza when we started dating in 2007. I was skeptical at first but man, was she right.
We have been searching for comparable pizza ever since we moved to Michigan in 2008. We’ve found some good ones but nothing quite the same. The big thing missing for me is Italian beef and giardiniera as toppings. Again, I’ve found a few places that do that but not many.
There is one pizza that stands out as being really close to those Chicago tavern style pizzas and it quickly became one of my favorite pizza places in Kalamazoo.
That pizza is Bimbo’s Pizza on East Michigan Avenue east of South Pitcher Street in downtown Kalamazoo. The pizza joint has been around since the late 1950’s in a large three story brick building that, until the 1980’s was the Columbia Hotel. The part of the building Bimbo’s is in actually started life in the late 1800’s at the Arlington Hotel. Eventually, that building along with the one next to it were absorbed in to the much large, half a block wide building that would become the Columbia Hotel. Bimbo’s location in the northwest corner of the building appears to have always been some sort of restaurant. Before it was Bimbo’s Pizza, it was Paris Cafe. Bimbo’s opened in this location in 1959 and almost 65 yeas later, it’s still ran by the same family.
We have eaten at Bimbo’s several times over the years but I haven’t blogged about the place since 2010 when we first moved to Kalamazoo. It’s been on my to-do list for a while but I finally got the chance when my boss told me to expense my dinner earlier this week. We knew it was going to be a long night at work and the Grand Rapids office had pizza brought in. Since we don’t ever get those in office perks at the satellite office in Kalamazoo, boss said to just grab dinner and expense it.
I put in an order for a large Meat Lover’s Special using online ordering. The cost was right around $23 and it gave me a pick up time of about 20 minutes after I ordered.
One of the stupid complaints I hear all the time when talking about Bimbo’s is “there’s no place to park.” That’s total crap. There are a lot of places to park around the building on the street and if you’re dining in, the Kalamazoo Ramp is a little over a block away..and it’s free for the first 90 minutes. If you’re just doing pick up, there’s actually a lot right across the street with spots to park. There is enough gap in the traffic due to the timing of the lights downtown that crossing the street is pretty easy.
As soon as you walk in the door, it feels like you’re walking in to a time capsule. The building has the feeling of a 125+ year old building. The pizza ovens and the small kitchen where everything is made is out in the open right as you walk in the door. You can even stand outside and watch the pizzas being made on a counter right in front of the window. The order counter is right next to that. The space is kind of tight as there’s really only enough room for a person to walk in either direction. As soon as I walked in, someone from the kitchen turned around and headed towards the order counter to deal with me. I was a little bit early so my pizza was still in the oven finishing up.
The dining room is pretty large by today’s pizza place standards but it’s actually pretty gorgeous. The outside wall is the original exposed brick. The back wall in dark wood paneling. The floor has a patterned carpet that looks like it’s been there a while and the booths are a deep mahoganey colored solid wood that also look like they have seen this place develop over the decades. There are some modern flares like the TV’s on the wall but for the most part, this space is a throwback to what this restaurant could have been like when it was built.
I didn’t have to wait long until my pizza was boxed up and handed over the counter to me. I grabbed it then headed back to the office to eat.
Like I mentioned earlier, Bimbo’s Pizza is the closest you’ll find to Chicago tavern style pizza in Kalamazoo. The crust is cracker thin and topped with a thick, sweet sauce. This pizza was overloaded with cheese, pepperoni, sausage, bacon, and ham. It was almost more meat than pizza. Each bite had an enormous amount of flavors and textures from the saltiness of the bacon to the spiciness of the pepperoni. The pizza is cut in to squares which is really the way thin crust pizza should be.
This is almost one of those pizzas that is better cold than hot. When it was fresh out of the oven, it was a little hard to eat because there was so many toppings that the crust couldn’t hold the weight of them. It was still an amazing pizza hot. I ate a little over half of it. I then threw the rest in the fridge for a later meal. When the pizza kind of congealed from the cold, it became a little easier to eat and it was still super delicious. I wanted to keep eating this one fresh out of the oven but I’m also glad I saved half of it so I could have the best of both worlds.
It’s safe to say Bimbo’s Pizza is one of my favorite pizzas in Kalamazoo. We definitely don’t order from them enough. We usually pick the cheaper delivery places when we order pizzas. Bimbo’s kind of became one of those special night pizzas when we wanted something different. The menu is really small, they really only do pizza so there’s not a lot of options but options aren’t necessary when you’re cranking out pizzas this delicious.
SW Michigan Dining 