Around noon on New Year’s Eve, T. Mario and I decided to try out one of the pizza joints in town that we had been meaning to go to. Unfortunately, the three we had in mind were all closed until later in the afternoon. Seeing as we’d lost about an hour on this quest, we decided to just stop at the next pizzeria we found. Luckily for us we didn’t have to wait long. We came across Angelo’s Pizza on the corner of 16th and Wells on the Marquette campus.
Now I had heard of Angelo’s before, and good things about it too. But I was under the impression it wasn’t open any longer. When I first moved to Milwaukee, my dad had recommended going there for pizza, but he couldn’t remember exactly where it was and the Internet didn’t provide any results. Which is weird, because now a Google search for “Angelo’s Pizza Milwaukee” will show you exactly where the place is. So anyway, the place still exists, and I was finally able to see what my dad was talking about.
The restaurant had a very rustic dive bar feel to it. There is a very small bar at the back, which happened to be full when we walked in. The dining area was a ghost town, just empty tables. It almost felt like we were invading on someone’s private place, as the six or so gentlemen at the bar seemed to know each other. The waitress was friendly and promptly took our food and drink orders. We opted for a large cheese and mushroom za and a few beers.
THE GOOD: The amount of cheese on this pizza definitely beats out Village Pub for most obscene amount, and the sauce was plentiful as well. The cheese was very stringy and seemed really fresh. The sauce was really good as well, tangy with a hint of sweetness. They were actually open for an early lunch, so they’ve got that going for them as well. If you’re a fan of local dive bars (I am), you’ll love the atmosphere at Angelo’s.
THE BAD: There really isn’t much bad to say about this place. The first slice I grabbed had all of the cheese pulled off due to the stretchiness of the cheese and the freshness of the pizza (it was still steaming when the waitress brought it out). But that’s mostly a problem with my impatience; if I would have waited a minute or two or been a little more careful, I wouldn’t have had to eat my crust with the cheese just heaped on top of it. An actual bad thing is they don’t have a website, or really much representation on the web at all (Yo, Angelo, give me a call and I’ll fix that). If they had some sort of presence on the web a few years ago, I would have had the pleasure of eating this amazing pizza this whole time. Good thing Google has picked up the slack. Also, if you have “PIZZA” in the name of your business, how in the hell are you using canned mushrooms? Not a deal-breaker, by any means, but come on.
TRY: I suppose I would recommend going there for dinner, rather than lunch. It would probably be a little less awkward if there were other people in the building that weren’t likely sitting at that bar every day. But the pizza is definitely worth the trek out to the Marquette campus.
It’s strange that we stumbled upon this place while trying to go to several other pizza places, but I will definitely be coming back.
RATING: Baseball Touchdown
