Bruno’s Pizza & Restaurant

The pizza is substandard, even for a place frequented by students. The older lady who runs the place is unpleasant to be around.

Ordered my pizza they said 25 minutes show up 10’minutes late and still have to wait another 20 minutes. So they pretty much don’t start cooking it till u get there so carry out is not a good option if you want to get out of there. Didn’t even eat the pizza yet jus a horrible experience. Hour and fifteen minutes for a small pizza and garlic bread could’ve went to the store made it myself before said and done

Friendly service, simple menu, family owned, tight niche, and fairly quick service!
Basically nails a classic pizza joint.
Food time!
Mozzarella Sticks: Good!
Pizza (The Chicken Club): Good! Note– crisp bubbly crust and thin dough.
Side Salad: Like our server mentioned, the house vinaigrette is amazing, but it’s literally a bed of lettuce, dressing, and a packet of croutons served on the side. Not quite sure that qualifies as a salad.
I’ll have to come here again to try new options!

Brunos is the best pizza I have ever had the pleasure to eat. I am 51 years old and have been eating there a couple times a year since I could chew. I consider myself a pizza connoisseur. I have tried pizza all over the USA and my grandparents even owned a pizza place when I was a child. So there’s my resume. Bottom line is that you can’t beat the crust, sauce or ingredients. Now I tend to eat pizza from the chains loaded up with stuff but Brunos is a pie that I only get pepperoni and sausage, I’ve put other stuff on but it hurts the flavor of the dough and sauce. Yep, they cubit differently which is kind of cool too. Now this place has been run by the same family since I think 1959, I might be off a year but papa Brunos passed a few years ago but the Mrs. Is still there. She’s waited on tables for so long her ankles or legs don’t allow her to do this any longer but she’s still behind the counter and thier son is cooking pies. That’s my review and I’m taking the whole family tonight. Mmmm

Old-​school pizzeria featuring a thin-​crust pizza in the Neapolitan style (crust is simultaneously crispy and chewy). Traditional toppings available. Unique entrée worth trying is the spaghetti a la Caruso which includes chicken livers in the sauce! Salads are nothing special, just iceberg lettuce, but garlic bread is good and chicken wings are different in that they are spiced but dry– no sauce. A Kalamazoo institution worth trying!

The full Chef Salad for $ 6 is a steal and will feed a table if 4 as an appetizer. Ham, Bacon, Green Olive and Black Olive topped with a copious amount of Mozzarella Cheese make this a fresh twist on an Old Classic,
The pizza is good not great and cut into strips and not slices. If you are looking for great pizza drive by this place and find something else if you can here in Kalamazoo, however; if you are hungry, like we were, this place will suffice as a good meal.
I am sure one of the draws for this place is late night college deliver and or pick-​up which is totally understandable for the longevity of this place. #1 Rule in restaurants is Location, Location, Location and this place proves the saying.

I am partial to this restaurant because my sister worked here in college. The pizza is not quite as good as similar restaurants (pizza is comparable to Bimbo’s in terms of texture), but knowing about the family that runs the business helps inform the eating experience. They are kooky and funny people, even if they don’t run the most efficient restaurant. (Translation, this is probably a ³⁄₅ rating in reality.)
This is great pizza if you like thin crust and little sauce. The crust is a bit dry, which is good if you like it that way (compare to the greasiness of Erbelli’s). The ingredients are good quality, and you can taste the care that goes into making the pizza. They do cross-​cut pizzas, so if you don’t like that, you will be disappointed.
Cons: the wait staff is poorly trained, and the place is not the cleanest (like any other divey restaurant). They weren’t taking credit cards when I last went there, but I have to believe that has changed.

This is the best pizza in Kalamazoo, hands down. What’s more, not too long ago it got a shout out on Slice (a well known pizza blog based in NYC) as having some of the best pizza in the whole state of Michigan.
I’ve been coming to Bruno’s for pizza my entire life. As a child, I remember excitedly standing on the steps near the front of the store to peer into the open kitchen and watch the pizzas get made. The place hasn’t changed one bit. The décor is still the same. They still cut the pizza into perfect little strips using scissors. The mural of a bear holding balloons still adorns the side of the building.
The pizza is fantastic. Thin, perfectly chewy crust. A great balance of sauce and toppings. My family fights over the «corner» pieces. Though I’ve been a vegetarian for years, our family standard is a ground beef and mushroom pie. Admittedly, I’m not on the look out for this topping combo elsewhere, but I think it’s pretty unique. And though I just eat plain mushroom now, I remember it being really good too.
Also, their chef salads are GREAT. Their house dressing – a vinaigrette – is delicious.
I no longer live in Kalamazoo, but a trip home for me just isn’t complete without a pizza from Bruno’s.

I haven’t been to Bruno’s in years but it was probably the best place I went to eat in Kalamazoo. I’m reviewing it now because I think the 1-​star review below is incredibly mis-​represntative of what Bruno’s is all about. The pizza is superb (omg fresh tomatoes and garlic for toppings!) and the staff is friendly. I wish there was a place near me that sold this kind of pizza. So tasty.

Short story: Bruno’s offers friendly service, and my favorite pizza in Kalamazoo.
Long story (I’m sorry, but I refuse to shorten it): About a decade ago I was a recent transplant to Kalamazoo from New York. Freshly out of college and feeling oh-​so-​grown-​up, I reckoned that *somewhere* in this town I would find pizza comparable to the stuff I grew up with back East.
I decided I would systematically try every local pizza place in the area. I started picking at random with some interesting results, and decided an alphabetical approach (remember, this was back in the days of phonebooks) would be more logical.
A Pizza Yen: too oily. Bilbo’s: too doughy. Bimbo’s: too crunchy. Next was Bruno’s.
I’m a fan of letting restaurants tell me what I want. I like best sellers, house specials, that kind of thing. Bruno’s was the first pizzeria on my search that told me they didn’t have «specials;» that their specialty was pizza. That was promising. On to the next test: «Do you offer garlic as a topping?» «Yes.» «Fresh tomatoes?» «Yes.» «OK! Two pizzas: one plain cheese, one with tomatoes and garlic.» «Twenty minutes.»
I hadn’t seen the restaurant before, so when I got there I was impressed with the old-​fashioned look of the place: a big, classic neon sign out front, as well as tile-​work above the shop windows. As I got closer, I saw that the pizzas are made right inside the front window, just like pizzerias back home. Bruno’s was racking up points very quickly.
During the drive home the heady garlic aroma enticed me to have a quick peek while stopped at a traffic light. In the box I saw something confusing and strange, so I closed the box, and finished my drive free of distraction (safety first, kids).
Back home, in better light, I opened the boxes and inspected the goods. My eyes hadn’t deceived me earlier: this pizza was cut in the oddest way I’d ever seen. Not standard wedge-​cut, not Sicilian-​style rectangular cut, not St. Louis-​style party-​cut. I don’t even have a name for this cut style, as I’ve never seen it elsewhere. One diametric cut divides the pizza in two halves, and then perpendicular to the first cut, several parallel cuts slice the pizza into strips. It’s the same kind of slice pattern you see used most often for cheese bread at chain pizzerias. The resulting slices are long, mostly rectangular, and conveniently mouth-​width in size.
After I finished puzzling over the geometry of the pie, the moment of truth had arrived. I took a bite, and there it was … everything a pizza should be. Soft, steamy crust, fresh-​tasting sauce, with gooey, stretchy cheese. I moved on to a slice of the tomato-​garlic pizza: bingo. All those little neuroreceptor things in my brain went «ding-​ding-​ding!» and I knew my pizza search in Kalamazoo had come to an end.
I quickly became a regular there, which led to an interesting experience for me a couple years later. I ended up on a stupid diet, and wasn’t eating pizza for a couple of years. After I came to my senses, I headed back to Bruno’s. When I got there, the strangest thing happened: they *remembered* me. They wondered where I’d been, and what I’d been up to. That was my first experience with that personal type of small-​town, small business charm that makes this part of the country so nice.
So that’s the story: not only did Bruno’s give me a way to connect to the flavors I missed from New York, but it also helped to solidify my connection to this town. Thanks to that experience, I took that crucial emotional step from «Kalamazoo is where I live» to «Kalamazoo is my home.»

Sorry, the pizza here was just not good. Kind of dry and lacking any sauce with almost-​burnt cheese. Not my thing.