On Eccentric Midwestern Pizza Spots
A little ode to Maria's in Milwaukee
The restaurant obit is a tricky thing. I’ve written my fair share on everything from Little Italy red sauce joints to Parisian duck spots I only got to go to once. But if there was one bright spot in 2022 I can point to and think things might be on the upswing after the last few years, it’s people seem to be going out again, new places are opening and, at least for me, fewer favorites closed down over the last 365 days. There will always be restaurants and bars shutting their doors no matter what might be happening in the world, but this last year compared to the previous few felt like a bit of a reprieve.
Except for Maria’s in Milwaukee. I recently discovered it closed down this past summer, and it hit me right in the guts. If you follow me on multiple platforms, you may have seen I posted about it on Instagram since the Christmas holiday made me think of it. And since a lot of people seemed interested in the place, I figured I’d use one of my last newsletters of the year to just type out a few more words about one of my favorite pizza places in America that is no more.
Maria’s was truly one of those places you had to experience. When people asked, I described Gray Gardens as a Midwestern pizza place run by David Lynch, and that’s really it. Maybe a dash of John Waters in there as well because the place was campy as hell, but I don’t think the family that had been running it since 1957 felt that way. I don’t know if I ever saw it wind up on any lists of the best pizza places in America, but I also often find those lists to be lazy and mostly either arbitrary or just reworked versions of other lists because publications don’t have the resources to dedicate to anything better. Would I have placed it among the best? Yes. But, again, you had to experience it to understand. The pizza was really good and served up like a long sheet and not a pie or the squares and rectangles tavern style you find across the region. The cheese had that perfect Halloween color look and the edge crust just barely held the orange and brown mozzarella and sauce from spilling over the edge.
There was the pizza and there was the atmosphere. Maria’s wasn’t in the center of the city. It lived and died a local existence, which probably is what relegated it to blissful obscurity and not some trampled-over tourist destination. You’d go there and Bonnie Crivello, the granddaughter of the original owner, would be there to greet you all decked out in her slim red dress, red stilettos, and dark eyeliner. And the decor? Perfect. Red and white checkered table covers, lots of Christmas lights and enough Catholic tchotchkes that always had me thinking if only 1980s Madonna had found out about the place then she would have for sure featured it in one of her videos. I often see reviews describing the place as “quirky,” and that really was the right word for it.
The news I’ve been reading is that “hopefully” there will be new owners to take it over from the family that has been running it since 1957, but it wouldn’t be the same. To me, it would be the same as people taking over Burt’s Place in Morton Grove, IL. I tried to bring myself to go to the new version, but just decided I’d rather go to the original Pequod’s not far from it. Burt’s was great, Bourdain famously loved it, but it was mostly because Burt was there and Burt Katz was definitely one-of-a-kind. Like the Traxel family that owned Maria’s, eccentricity is part of the beauty of the package, and it’s impossible to reboot that. The former future traders who bought Burt’s don’t seem to get that, I suppose that’s why they planned on opening another location.
If we are indeed going out again and people are getting back to traveling, here’s what I’m going to suggest. Sometime this spring or summer, go to Milwaukee or the Twin Cities, Chicago or somewhere in Michigan. Find an older, locals-only pizza spot a little (or a lot, depending on gas prices) outside of the city. Order a pie or two, a pitcher of “pop,” and just bask in one of the truly great pizza-eating experiences. Don’t Instagram it, and don’t even tell anybody about the place. Just enjoy it. I swear it will live with you forever.