Today for Comixlunch, Scott and I decided to go visit a new-for-us restaurant in Kalamazoo called Erbelli’s. We ran into Max at Fanfare Entertainment (our local comic book shop) and after we bought our comics we took a trip all the way across town to where Erbelli’s is. I already knew they had excellent Pizza due to a surprise lunch thrown for the staff by our local management at work so I expected this to be top-notch.
My expectations were generally met. The pizza that Erbelli’s makes is incredibly good and currently occupies my #1 choice for Pizza anywhere. Their restaurant is unusually organized and I believe it was due to an expansion they made after they “made a better mousetrap”. The “original” shop is very small, quite literally a foyer jammed against a large pizza kitchen. The expansion is a cutaway doorway between the original strip-mall space and its adjacent space. The dominating feature of the adjacent space is the bar, it’s immense! Nothing about Erbelli’s is confusing or difficult to manage. The restaurant has some wear-and-tear issues that come with any place that’s been open as long as they have been and really those didn’t detract from the experience, they were just a part of the ‘atmosphere’ of the place. We went for their lunch buffet, from 11am to 2pm, about $8 per person. Everything about the buffet experience is customer-driven, you get your own food, you tend your own plates, and you tend your own drinks. For what I spent and what I got, it was an absolute steal. Truly exceptional pizza with every part of the experience in my hands, the way I like it.
There was only one problem with Erbelli’s and it’s not really a showstopper, more of a hip-bump adjustment and that is, there isn’t any labeling present on the buffet layout. You don’t know what Pizza is laid out on the buffet and you pretty much have to look-and-see to figure out what is what. It’s something that is exceptionally easy to fix, just need some cardstock, an inkjet printer, and about half-an-hour and anyone could make little disposable tent-cards which would really polish off the entire experience.
When I say Erbelli’s has good pizza, it’s a massive understatement. It’s the best pizza I’ve had in my life and I prefer it more than any other Pizza anywhere (with a normal exception to NYC Pizza, but that’s nearly in a different category altogether!). I can’t recommend them enough, and to that end, here is their contact information and address. If you like pizza, you owe it to yourself to go and enjoy what they have to offer:
6214 Stadium Drive
Kalamazoo, MI
375-0408
-or-
8342 Portage Road
Portage, MI
327-0200
