For decades as we grew up in and around the City of Detroit, we always loved a chance to visit a Buddy’s Pizza restaurant except that their locations were strategically and sparsely spread around the city. We were never lucky enough to have a Buddy’s close to where we lived. We needed to be out and about to be able to find a location and then it was a “must visit” for lunch or dinner regardless of what the kids in the back seat might have wanted.

Buddy’s never followed the same business plan as a couple of other Detroit Pizza chains you might have heard of. Both Little Caesars and Domino’s went ballistic nationally while Buddy’s stayed small, still cranking out consistent quality on those wonderful square and rectangle deep dish, super crunchy bottom crust, Detroit style pizzas. Scattered around the greater Detroit Metro area, Buddy’s was simply not in every neighborhood.

In homage to an old John Stewart/Daily Show bit, someone from New York might view a Buddy’s pizza as more of a “casserole” than a pizza. It seems that Domino’s and Little Caesars both attempted to follow that general New York style, but an actual New York street slice is just somehow better especially at 11:00 PM following some late night beverages. Buddy’s however, should never apologize for ignoring those flat style pizza standards, because it’s just plain good. It’s thick, crunchy on the bottom, soft on the top, light sauce and pepperoni under a thick blanket of cheese. Sacrilege you say? If you can’t call it pizza, who cares. I’ll take three squares please.

After moving around a bit, out of state and then back, we settled in the middle of Michigan and nowhere close to any of our old favorite Detroit restaurants. Finding a real Detroit “Coney Island” diner is out of the question, though there is a Leo’s Coney Island about 35 minutes south of us. Leo’s isn’t as good as American or Lafayette or even National Coney Island, but it’s a welcome stop as we travel. Jet’s Pizza has expanded north from Detroit and we have one near us now. It’s good Detroit Style pizza, but it isn’t Buddy’s. And this is about the point in our story where we were shocked; “SHOCKED” I tell you, to find a rectangular Buddy’s pepperoni pizza, wrapped in clear plastic, sitting in our local supermarket frozen foods section.

Frozen Pizza Isn’t Food

I hate frozen pizza. In fact I hate it even more now that some of the prices have risen to the point where a fresh pie from Little Caesars costs less. Most of the national brand frozen pizzas are barely edible. If they are brave enough to wrap their hardened disks in clear plastic, you can see that the cheese is just barely dotted on the pie as if a toddler threw a handful of sawdust over the surface. I like cheese to actually cover my pizza surface, if you don’t mind. Pepperoni? I’d like to be able to count the number of pepperoni on more than one hand. This explains why I think, that most brands hide their frozen wafers of dough inside a box with a pretty picture on top of what the pizza is supposed to look like but never does.

“Take a breath, man. Relax.”

There are times when we know we won’t have time to make dinner or don’t feel like cooking especially after a day of yard work, hauling heavy stuff with wheelbarrows, or just because the weather make you feel blah. These are the days we will cave in to making sandwiches or tuna mac and cheese or yes, maybe some frozen pizza.

We have found a couple frozen pizzas better than others. For a while we were into Freschetta thin crust, brick oven pizzas though we doubt highly that these pies came within a thousand yards of heated brick. The Screamin’ Sicilian brand isn’t too bad either but it’s still typical frozen pizza-esque; mostly dry, maybe crunchy and simply something to fill your stomach when it growls. It’s food, but not anything you will talk about with your friends afterwards. I’ve never heard a positive comment from anyone, anywhere after eating a frozen pizza. Maybe something like, “It wasn’t that bad” is what you could expect.

The Buddy’s Way

The Buddy’s Detroit Style arrives in an aluminum pan and is already (mostly) pre-cooked. You can see that the edges of the cheese are slightly brown and that the cheese, hold onto your hats, is thickly covering the entire pizza. In the Buddy’s style, pepperoni is not visible on top as it rests comfortably under the cheese. The box will politely tell you that “35 pieces are baked under the cheese”. Thirty five. Not five or fifteen. Thirty five. There is also a little splash of pizza sauce over the top of the cheese to let you know that this is a different animal altogether.

For those less informed, the packaging highlights a few facts about Buddy’s. They are the original Detroit Style pan pizza, established in 1946. Buddy’s was recognized by Food and Wine Magazine as “The best pizza spot in the U.S.” They also warranted a mention by the Food Network as one of the “Nation’s Five Best Pizza Places”. Not too bad for a blue collar town pizza joint. But, those are the accolades for the restaurant and the hot fresh pizza brought to your table. We’re still talking about frozen pizza, right?

The cooking instructions are also unique for this pizza. You’re instructed to put the frozen pan in the oven before turning the oven on. Setting the oven temp to 425 degrees, you let the pizza pan warm up as the oven does. It’s different from all the other frozen shoe leather pizzas, but that’s OK. It will take anywhere up to 28 minutes to bake thoroughly, though with our oven we let it sit a bit longer until the cheese on top starts to brown up a little.

The cooked rectangular pizza sits nicely and presents nicely on a larger cutting board placed in the center of a kitchen dining table. It will cut into 8 pieces, 3 inches by 4 inches and depending on personal preferences, people will fight over the corner pieces for the extra crunchy cheese. The bottom crust is indeed crunchy as a Detroit Style pan pizza should be thanks to a little oil helping to cook the dough in the pan. Soft on top, crunchy on the bottom and a sauce/pepperoni combination filling the inside. I’d be lying if I told you that it is just as good as when a friendly Buddy’s server brings out a fresh pan from the kitchen, but it is damn close.

So again, we were shocked to find a Buddy’s Pizza in the frozen foods section more than 3 weeks ago. We bought one to try one. Based on the pictures below, you can tell that we returned to the store to buy four more to keep on hand because they are THAT good. And we don’t need an “I don’t feel like cooking” moment to pull one out of the freezer. We just need to feel like having great pizza for dinner.

I have mixed emotions about finding this little gem. I hope the frozen pizza venture by Buddy’s remains successful so that we can enjoy some of their square pie for years to come, even though we don’t live in Detroit anymore. But, I also hope they don’t sell out to some cheap third party manufacturer to make it a national money making endeavor that cheapens the quality of this product. This frozen pizza is awesome, and it really, really needs to stay that way.