Jimano’s Pizzeria (Pleasant Prairie)
After a couple weeks off, we’re back on the road for a figure skating competition.
We headed to Pleasant Prairie, Wisconsin last week for another one of our favorite competitions. The Southport Summer Classic at the Pleasant Prairie Rec Plex.
I took Wednesday off because we had to drive over Wednesday evening. J got off work around 3 and we left as soon as she got home.
The drive was actually pretty smooth until we got to downtown Chicago on the Kennedy Expressway. There was a crash on the inbound side and it was holding up traffic on the outbound side as people had to gawk as we drove by.
We got to Pleasant Prairie around 6:30 and got checked in to our room at the DoubleTree Hotel right on the edge of town not too far from the ice arena.
I asked if anyone wanted pizza for dinner because I did. Everyone else said no. They just wanted to go to the Kwik Trip down the road and stock up on snacks, drinks, and their delicious grab and go hot food. I knew I was going to do that several times over the next three days so I told them I’d take them to Kwik Trip then I was ordering myself a pizza.
When we got back to the hotel, I pulled up the website for Jimano’s Pizzeria. I had ordered from them once before when we stayed in Gurnee, IL so I knew I liked their pizza and they would have a specific type of pizza that I really wanted.
The Jimano’s Pizzeria in Pleasant Prairie is on 76th Street and 91st Avenue on the far northside of Pleasant Prairie. That whole stretch of road is kind of odd because 75th Street/WI-50 is the main stretch of road and the dividing line between Pleasant Prairie and Kenosha but the buildings are only accessible from what is almost an access road behind them or off to the side. There are no driveway entrances from 75th. In the case of Jimano’s, that road is 76th Street. The pizza joint takes up a corner building in a larger shopping center and you can’t even see it if you’re on 75th Street.
It was 50% off pizza night and they were pretty busy. I put in order for a 14″ thin crust inch two topping pizza, a half an order of Jimano’s Famous Mouthwatering Breadstix (actually what they’re called on the menu) and a cup of nacho cheese. The cost was just under $25 and it took almost an hour for the order to be ready.
I got to the pizza shop a little early and just hung in my car until it showed on the tracker on the website that my order was ready. I headed in to the shop which isn’t much more than a counter to pick up the pizza. I told the woman working my name and she turned around to grab the two boxes out of a warming cabinet behind her. l had already paid online so I grabbed the boxes and headed back to the hotel.
No one else was eating with me so I ordered what I wanted. A thin crust Italian beef and giardiniera pizza. This is, by far, my favorite type of pizza. J’s parents turned me on to this when she and I first started dating. Their usual pizza night was Palermo’s 95th in Oak Lawn, IL where J grew up. A lot of places in Chicago will do this exact same style of pizza although no one is quite as good as Palermo’s.
The pizza from Jimano’s is exactly what I needed. It’s a cracker thin crust that has a nice crunch all the way through it. It’s topped with a sweet red sauce, piles of thinly sliced Italian beef and loads of that hot, tangy pickled vegetable mix that I love so much about Chicago. Every bite had a crunch to it followed by a little bit of spiciness. I really wanted a Chicago tavern style thin crust pizza as I was driving through downtown Chicago and Pleasant Prairie/Kenosha is close enough to Chicago that I can still get this delicious creation that we can’t get in Michigan.
I also ordered a half order of “Stix” which is a half order of their “Famous” breadsticks….and a half order is way more than I was expecting. The foil pan was filled with enough breadsticks to feed my family if they had wanted. The bread is covered in a buttery Parmesan crust. These things were delicious on there and I ate a few of them that way but I really ordered these to dip them.
It comes with a choice of dipping sauce but the only one that came for free that I was even interested in was the marinara. What I really wanted was Nacho Cheese. This is such a huge thing in Indiana and Illinois but almost non-existent in Michigan. Jimano’s chain is mostly in Illinois (5 of the 9 stores) and they have nacho cheese as a side order so I grabbed on. Like I mentioned above, the Stix were good enough on their own but man were they good dipped in Nacho Cheese. I went so overboard and there were so many Stix that there wasn’t enough so I was glad I had the marinara the next morning when I went back to these for breakfast.
Jimano’s Pizzeria really scratched that itch for me. I will die on the hill Chicago tavern style pizza is the best pizza and that an Italian beef pizza is by far the best of the Chicago pizzas. I knew from past experience that I could get exactly what I was looking for from a Jimano’s but I didn’t realize there was one in Pleasant Prairie. It was made even better by it being 50% off. This was a great culinary start to a long couple of days in Southern Wisconsin.
SW Michigan Dining 