The family in the room

Sal and Donna Marchese, two nephews, one oven. That is the whole org chart.

Sal spent years on other people's lines before he wanted a shop with his name on the lease, not a logo from somewhere else. Donna kept the books for a parts warehouse off 15 Mile and knew exactly how much they could risk. In 2012 they took a narrow room on Mound Road in Sterling Heights, bought used steel pans, and told the nephews they could either go to community college at night or learn to stretch dough in the morning. Both still do a bit of each.

Brick cheese is not a gimmick. It is a low-moisture cheese that can stand the walls of a hot pan without turning into oil. Against high steel it caramelizes. That brown lace is the point of a square pie. If you grew up on a chain's round-and-delivery model, this will taste louder and a little fried at the edge. That is on purpose. We season the pans with oil and time, not a spray can. A new pan is almost useless for a month. The old ones are the shop.

We still answer the phone ourselves because a ticket shouted across a ten-foot room is faster than a tablet that needs a software update. Donna hates the idea of someone in another state reading our tickets. If the line is busy, wait. If we miss you, leave a message with a return number that is not a call center. Sal will call back between pans.

Why you might have seen our shop in a search ad

Sal here. The nephews run a small local search ad budget so people looking for square pie near Mound Road can find the actual shop instead of a map pin from 2011. Sometimes those ads show up next to much bigger names. We are not those names. If you are looking for a big national chain, you should head to that chain's official site. We will not pretend to be them, take their orders, or wear their hats. If an ad felt confusing, that is on us for buying the cheapest neighborhood keywords we could afford. Come in anyway if you want steel-pan pizza. Call first.

We do not collect cards through a web form. We do not have a franchise binder. The only “territory” we care about is whether a nephew can get down Mound Road before the cheese sets up in the box. If a review site still lists an old phone number, ignore it and use (586) 268-4419.

Donna's note: please stop asking if we will open a second store in Warren. The pans, the parking, and the Sunday gravy only scale so far. We would rather be good on one block than polite on five.