120 E. Main StreetYay to long weekends. J and I both had July 4th off which is something that is not always guaranteed. We did have to work the 5th but then had the weekend off.
We decided to spend the weekend at her parents house on the lake near Sturgis. We left as soon as I got home from work on Wednesday and even though J and I had to come back on Friday for work, the kids spent five days swimming in the lake and hanging out with Nana and Grandpa.
I hadn’t had a chance to eat pretty much all day on Wednesday after getting called in to work early. J picked up McDonalds for the kids when she picked them up from daycare but didn’t want McDonalds herself. We got to St. Joe County pretty late but J told me to order a pizza…my choice.
We have a lot of pizza places in Sturgis, Centreville, etc that we need to try so we kind find our new carry-out place in that area. The only ones we’ve really tried are Jaspare’s in Mendon and the Sand Lake Party Store.
I picked Li’l Louie’s Pizza & Subs in Centreville. Like so many places in this area, it is really, really hard to find a menu online. I did finally find one on Facebook but it took so much longer than it should have.
I put in the order for a 14″ half cheese and half pepperoni pizza and an order of cheezy sticks. The lady on the phone told me it would be about 35 minutes. It worked out well because it gave me time to make a stop at Sand Lake Party store to pick up ice and an order of their cheese bread, which J loves and was kind of craving, before heading in to Centreville to pick up our pizza.
Li’l Louie’s Pizza & Subs is on the E. Main Street (M-86) east of downtown Centreville. The restaurant is right on the corner of Main and Nottawa Streets. The blue and yellow building (Centreville High School’s colors) looks like it used to be a mechanic garage or gas station many, many years ago. There’s a small parking lot alongside the building and there’s even an outdoor dining area if you want to dine al fresco in Centreville.
The outside is covered in Bulldog logos and painted in the school colors, yes…but the inside has blue and yellow walls covered with CHS memorabilia. There are pictures, jersey’s, letterman’s jackets and other collectibles on almost every available surface.
Even the order counter has a giant Centreville High School Bulldogs banner along the front of it.
My pizzas were ready when I walked in. The tab was a little over $18 and, unfortunately, their machine didn’t have a place for tips and I only had a couple bucks cash on me.
I grabbed the pizzas to take home to my family who had decided to go for a swim while I was gone but there is a place to dine in if you want to eat the pizza super fresh.
I started with the Cheezy Sticks first when I got back to J’s parents because I was trying to balance three pizza boxes on my walk down to the lake. The cheezy sticks is their pizza crust covered in a thick layer of mozzarella cheese and a garlic butter. It comes with two cups of marinara for dipping. This is a pretty standard yet pretty solid take on cheese sticks. It was delicious with the marinara but I would probably double on on garlic butter and dip it in some more of that if available.
I had the pizza pretty much all to myself even though I did half pepperoni and half plain cheese. This is a really doughy pizza with a thick handle crust and a lot of sauce. The pizza was nice and golden brown in all the right places but I felt like the sauce could have gotten closer to the edge and they could maybe cut the amount of dough used in half. I actually used a lot of the marinara dipping sauce from the cheesy stix for the pizza crust because it was just a little too dry on it’s own.
Li’l Louie’s Pizza and Subs is a pretty classic small town pizzeria. They crank out a lot of food for a town that doesn’t have a lot of choices. My in-laws have always preferred to go to The LocalThe Local whenever we go to Centreville so I was happy to have the opportunity to grab a pizza from this place. We’re still testing the waters in St. Joseph County and trying to find our lake house carry-out pizza place and this stop at Li’l Louie’s is just one stop on that journey.