Even the world’s most celebrated Detroit-style pizza chain can’t win ‘em all, it seems, especially in today’s economy. In a rare setback, the Portage, Michigan location of Detroit-based Buddy’s Pizza closed down earlier this week.
Buddy’s is to Detroit-style pizzerias as the Rose Bowl is to college bowl games—the granddaddy of them all. But the chain announced this week that the Portage store couldn’t hang on any longer in the post-pandemic era.
That location opened in 2020 during the COVID-19 outbreak that shut down restaurants for dine-in nationwide and put many pizza shops out of business entirely. The Portage store stayed in the game but had been playing catch-up ever since.
Related: What You Need to Know to Make a Perfect Detroit-Style Pizza
Tuesday, May 13, was its last night in business.
“Following a grand opening in the middle of a pandemic, the location continued to suffer the difficulties of navigating COVID protocols, supply-chain disruptions, staffing shortages, inflationary impacts to include lease terms, and more,” the brand explained in a statement.
“Unfortunately, all of these factors prevented the Buddy’s team from ever being able to operate the Portage location at its fullest potential and to the company’s highest standards of excellence,” the statement continued.
Buddy’s Pizza, founded by Gus Guerra in 1946, is the fabled birthplace of the Detroit square, baked in seasoned blue steel pans and boasting gloriously caramelized edges with racing stripes of sauce on top. Buddy’s has spawned scores of offshoots and imitators nationwide, making it one of the most influential pizza brands in the country.
Buddy’s also founded National Detroit-Style Pizza Day in 2021, now celebrated every year by Motown-inspired pizzerias from coast to coast.
Despite the loss of the Portage store, the chain is still going strong elsewhere in Michigan, with 15 full-service locations and five carry-out spots.
