A fresh slice
The new millennium brought more options including ZaZa’s Pizza Palace, Redbird Pizza, and Gumby’s with its deliciously greasy Pokey Stix, while a few legendary pizzerias served their final slices. Garcia’s left Normal in 1999, and Micheleo’s closed in 2010.
For alumni craving nostalgia, Tobin’s also serves Micheleo’s, and Garcia’s still operates in Champaign. Avanti’s, Lucca, and Tobin’s remain major pizza players in Bloomington-Normal.
Uptown Normal’s transformation in the mid-2000s sparked investments in new restaurants such as Medici, featuring stone oven pizza, and Firehouse Pizza. One of Uptown’s newest restaurant’s, Pizza Payaa, serves artisan pan pizzas. A 2021 Vidette article noted “the menu includes square pies, gluten-free pies and more.” Flingers Pizza Pub is another community favorite.
Today’s Redbirds have more options for different styles of pizza than ever. But instead of thumbing through the phone book or dialing a memorized number like 888-9999 (for Prime Time Pizza), they’re more likely to order through a mobile app. And while the selection has changed, generations of Redbirds hold shared experiences of laughing with friends or cramming for an exam between bites of crispy crust, melted cheese, and their favorite toppings.
“We’d get our pizza by the slice at Jake’s, and we’d talk about classes and work and dreams and bucket-list vacations … and everything else you can think of,” recalled Ryan Elias ’04.
Because when it comes to nourishing the college experience, pizza always delivers.