Deep-pan pizza into the wee hours might just be the recipe for success at a downtown location that’s seen its portion of misfortune in recent years. That’s the hope, anyway, for the owners of Detroit Pizza Pub, which opened September 1 in the block of N. Main between Ann and Miller.
Nick Habbert and Justin Smith nurtured the idea of a sports bar featuring Detroit-style pizza for nearly a decade, refining longtime family recipes in the process. | Photo: J. Adrian Wylie
The sports bar culminates a vision that partners Nick Habbert and Justin Smith have shared for nearly a decade, refining longtime family recipes in the process. Theirs is the fifth new sign to hang outside in the last decade and a half, even with six years vacant after the 2011 fire that shuttered Sheesh.
The duo had tried to work with the Kouza family’s cigar lounge concept, launched in 2017 as Siris. The Kouzas own the building and remain silent partners in the new pizza pub. Their other properties on the block include the Heidelberg Restaurant, Chapala Mexican Restaurant, and the Main Street Party Store.
But Siris, rebooted as Havana post-pandemic, didn’t find the hoped-for reception. “We realized the cigars weren’t a big hit in Ann Arbor, and it was more of a deterrent,” Smith acknowledges, “We could sit here and watch people come in and smell it and leave.”
Now patrons will encounter Michigan-focused scratch cooking, sixty beers on tap, and seating for 125, including a basement level with lottery machines and twenty TVs to accommodate watch parties across the sporting spectrum. Wolverine and Lions football audio is piped throughout the place during games.
The Detroit-style pizza, baked in oiled pans to caramelize the thick crust, comes conveniently by the square slice from the hot cabinet up front or in four- or eight-piece pies made to order. Pasta classics, cheese bread, chicken wings, salads, soups, and subs fill out the food menu. Spaghetti carbonara ($17) was a popular choice in the early weeks, Smith notes.
Specials for lunch combos and happy hour cover the daytime, while late-nighters have a choice for takeout, third-party delivery, and sit-down service even after the bars (including theirs) stop pouring.
“You get a lot of post-bar traffic, people wanting food. A lot of slices at that point, wings, anything deep-fried,” reports Smith, who leads the back-of-house team. They aim to do their own delivery and perhaps even expand the new brand eventually, but just hiring their current staff of twenty-five “was interesting,” Smith deadpans.
“We did a lot of interviews,” he says. “The front of the house, it seemed a little more attractive. Everybody wants to be a bartender. Trying to find people that want to be in the kitchen and be dirty and sweaty and greasy, it’s a little more of a challenge,” he says. “We’ve got a good crew. It was a lot better team than what we had before.”
Detroit Pizza Pub, 207 N. Main. (734) 780–7344. Sun.–Wed. 11 a.m.–2 a.m., Thurs.–Sat. 11 a.m.–4 a.m. detroitpizzapub.com