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Detroit style pizza

Detroit-style pizza is a rectangular pizza with a thick crust that is crispy and chewy. It is traditionally topped with tomato sauce and Wisconsin brick cheese that goes all the way to the edges. This style of pizza is often baked in rectangular steel trays designed for use as automotive drip pans or to hold small industrial parts in factories. The style was developed during the mid-twentieth century in Detroit before spreading to other parts of the United States in the 2010s. The dish is one of Detroit’s iconic local foods.

Contents
1 History
2 Description
3 Reception
4 See also
5 References
6 External links
History[edit]

Pizza in a traditional-style pan
The pizza was developed in 1946 at Buddy’s Rendezvous, a former blind pig owned by Gus and Anna Guerra located at the corner of Six Mile Road and Conant Street in Detroit.[1][2][3] Sources disagree whether the original Sicilian-style recipe was based on Anna Guerra’s mother’s recipe for sfincione[4] or a recipe from one of the restaurant’s employees, Connie Piccinato.[5][6] The recipe created a “focaccia-like crust” with pepperoni pressed into the dough to “maximize the flavor penetration”.[5][7] The restaurant baked it in blue steel pans available from local automotive suppliers, made in the 1930s and 1940s by Dover Parkersburg[6] and used as drip trays or to hold small parts or scrap metal[6] in automobile factories because baking pans available at the time were not appropriate for the dish.[1][2][5][8] Some 50- to 75-year-old pans are still in use.[6]

The restaurant later was renamed Buddy’s Pizza. In 1953, the Guerras sold it and opened the Cloverleaf in Eastpointe, Michigan.[3][9] Former Buddy’s employee Louis Tourtois made pizzas at Shield’s before founding Loui’s Pizza in Hazel Park, Michigan.[9][10] The Detroit News called Tourtois the “king of pizzas” in 1978.[10] National chain Jet’s, local chain Shield’s, and Luigi’s the Original of Harrison Township are other locally-notable restaurants serving the style.[11][12][13]