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Pizza on the road

Pizza in Springfield, Missouri is worth stopping for, finds Beth J. Harpaz

Pizza House in Springfield, Missouri, serves St. Louis-style pizza, with an extremely thin and crispy crust, cut into bite-size squares.- AP

We were on the eighth day of a 1,500-mile road trip, heading to an uninviting final night in an airport hotel in Springfield, Missouri. My sister and I had toured museums, historic sites and parks in four states, and we’d had great food, from barbecue and Middle Eastern to seafood and sophisticated small plates.

But now we were tired. We couldn’t face another artisanal cocktail menu. We needed something simple. We needed pizza.

But pizza’s not always simple. Sometimes it’s not even good. And I’m from New York, where pizza by the slice is almost always good. I’m also not a fan of Chicago deep-dish crusts.

Well, you learn something new every day: New York’s thin crust and Chicago’s deep-dish are not the only pizza options in this great land. There’s also St. Louis-style pizza, with a crust even thinner than New York’s, rolled out with a rolling pin because it’s too thin to stretch by hand and cut into bite-size squares. In New York, you only cut your pizza that way to feed a 2-year-old. But I was game.

We headed to Pizza House, recommended by online foodies as Springfield’s best pizza. It’s located on Commercial Street, one of those broad, old city streets that often house only vacant buildings or chains. But Commercial Street looked inviting. Hipsters with baby carriages and bicycles gathered outside cafes and small shops in converted brick warehouses and old-fashioned storefronts. Music blared from a hopping bar. A sign advertised a farmers market near the railroad tracks.

We stumbled into Pizza House and slumped in a booth. Through the fog of my road-trip brain, I thought: “Please don’t let this be complicated.”

It wasn’t. Pick a pie size — the waitress recommended we each get a 9-inch. Pick a topping (me, mushrooms; sister, black olives). Small salads arrived — iceberg lettuce and chopped tomatoes — as I looked around: shiny metal counter, cool retro clock, vintage cash register. The menu said, ‘Pizza House, since 1958.’ Turns out they’ve only been in this location for a few years, but I felt a happy vibe skip across the decades.

Our pizzas looked beautiful, despite having been sliced into a grid instead of wedges. As we popped bite-size squares in our mouths, I felt relieved that an entire triangle of cheese could not slide off with one bite. The crust was great — crispy and crunchy. After a few bites, I was a fan.

Feeling revived, we wanted dessert. The Pizza House staff sent us to a frozen custard place, but en route we found ourselves in an odd traffic jam, surrounded by big cars revving their engines. Crowds lined the road with lawn chairs and kids gawked. I asked passers-by what was happening. It was a car rally. Was there a frozen custard place nearby? Yes, several people shouted, pointing: “Andy’s!”

We found a large stand all lit up, with servers in caps and uniforms manning lines. Andy’s is a small regional chain, still owned by the family that started it in Springfield in 1986. As recommended by someone at Pizza House, I got pumpkin pie in vanilla custard, and learned that mixing a topping into a frozen dessert is known regionally as concrete (similar to a Dairy Queen blizzard). It was divine.

We headed to our airport hotel for the night. Between the pizza, custard and cars, our evening in Springfield felt as much like time travel as it did a memorable final stop on our road trip.

If You Go...

PIZZA HOUSE: 312 E. Commercial St., Springfield, Missouri; www.springfieldpizzahouse.com or 417-881-4073.

ANDY’S: 2119 N. Glenstone Ave., Springfield, Missouri, and other locations in Missouri, Illinois, Arkansas and Oklahoma; www.eatandys.com.