Buddy's Pizza | One Detroit Clip

[Music] everybody square Pizza square they make a square pizza and that was weird all these people crazy no one even heard of scorpy it was it was unheard of you fell in love with it it was great but there's purists that will come in and say nope cheese and pepperoni original sauce that's it Detroit style pizza is gonna be something when every time you take a bite you're gonna taste every product that's on there it became sort of the Detroit style as they referred to it now but it's actually Sicilian style that was that originated in Detroit Detroiters came back from the war and some had acquired well a more refined palate some were stationed in Great Britain and so they wanted English food would confession chef places like I crash it where we're at there's three or four men to my house on the east side Gus Guerra owned a Tavern at six mile in Kona it was a gathering place like buddy's rendezvous let's rendezvous at buddy's cuz the guys would come in and play cards Gus came from San Marino that little country surrounded by Italy and he had married into a Sicilian family and my father said you know what he says really no pieces here we got one piece in the city so we said we started making pizza but his rendezvous was at the front end of what soon would become Detroit's pizza craze everybody was throwing up pizzerias there was lots of Pizza round pizza but buddy's stayed Square and thicker and they used trays that were supposed to hold small car parts or even catch oil dripping for milling machines it's a labor-intensive process to do our pizza requires multiple stretchings where you take a round pizza you take the dough you flip it twist it and it's ready to go with us it's got a sit and proof of that part of it it didn't maybe appeal to a lot of pizza people at the time buddy's added one more ingredient to brick cheese brick cheese from Wisconsin another place with a lot of poles in German just like over on Detroit's east side the pepperoni is underneath the cheese which is unique but it's known for is the blend of the cheese and the flavors of the sauce with the dough creating this crunchy pizza that has got a great taste yep this is was going good all right but it wasn't going quite so well for Gus my father left buddies in 1953 there was a little internal problem between the partners which can happen in any relationship two guys both named Jimmy wanted buddies and so Gus sold it to him he promised buddies even over at least two miles away and he found a little farmhouse in East Detroit it was called cloverleaf fire when he bought it while Gus made his pizza north of 8 mile road on Gratiot back in Detroit these women led by a Sicilian named Connie pension Otto kept faithful to the original buddy's recipe Wesley Pakula started as a dishwasher there when he was just in high school whatever Connie tell you you do whatever Sabina tells you you do and Anna the one on the left you could see the size of her arm so trust me I listen to her more than anybody why the 1960s buddies have become an East Side institution sports teams that played it nearby Jane feel held pizza parties there sometimes hey they even lined up around the block just waiting for seats let's put it this way in 1970 buddy's was the story in that area there had other places I mean they had all their pizzerias on East Side there was many of them but none of them had the reputation of buddies had my parents went there around 1969 and my parents were just love the atmosphere 1970 was the year that really changed everything buddies was sold again to Bill and Shirley Jacobs this time who arrived just in time for the great pizza contest created by the Detroit News we had a good pizza and we thought we'd have a good shot better in a city full of round pizzas it was between the cloverleaf and buddy's for the squares but only one of them would get to compete my father called the model my brother called about it and they told them that you're excluded you can't enter the contest because you're not inside Detroit City Limits as The Omen was buddies was picked as the best pizza place in the city Barney she took the first place there hurt us I don't bad thought there was nothing we could do about it by the late 70s buddy's was adding another location out in Warren every story got better by the day so at some point it became legendary in 1980 Ronald Reagan came to town for the Republican National Convention it was big news of course and buddy's decided to feed square pizza to all those hungry reporters down at Cobo Hall and they liked it every news person you could mention every anchor sign that buddy's book said better than New York I mean we had Ted Koppel this knocks anything out of New York and we had so many of those quotes now buddies is spread out all over Metro Detroit maybe now it's a branch it's the test of time how much time well almost 70 years and cloverleaf is still going strong too and then there's Louise now we've got to mention Louise that's Louise pizza without an E he made it originally had buddies and then he made it it shields and well he decided to do it all by himself right here in Hazel Park nearly 40 years ago Detroit Square pizza is good of course but we haven't talked about Detroit's iconic round pizzas well maybe more on that next time

Channel: Detroit PBS

Views: 20,864

Keywords: detroit public tv, detroit pbs, wtvs

Id: vGMNkofuZ3s

Length: 6min 5sec (365 seconds)

Published: Thu Nov 14 2019