The Slice: Detroit-Style Pizza and the Case for the Rectangle
The fourth entry goes to the source: a thick crust, crispy cheese edges, and the pan that started it all.
The fourth entry in our Best Pizza in Ann Arbor series doesn't just leave Ann Arbor — it leaves the round pizza behind entirely. The first three entries covered wood-fired Neapolitan, New York-style thin crust, and brewery wood-fired. Each one was circular, each one was sliced into triangles, and each one was made in an oven tradition borrowed from somewhere else. This entry is different. This entry is a rectangle, baked in a blue steel pan, and it comes from right here.
Buddy's Pizza is widely credited as the originator of Detroit-style pizza. The story most people tell starts in the mid-1940s at the original location on Conant Street in Detroit, where the kitchen reportedly began baking pizza in blue steel utility pans — the kind used in automotive parts factories. Whether every detail of the origin story holds up to scrutiny, the result is not in dispute: a thick, airy crust baked in an oiled steel pan, cheese pushed all the way to the edges where it caramelizes against the metal, and sauce ladled on top in racing stripes after the pizza comes out of the oven.
That style is now served in restaurants from Los Angeles to Brooklyn. But Buddy's is still here, still making it, and still the place you go when you want to understand what the fuss is about.
The Style
Detroit-style pizza is defined by the pan. The blue steel conducts heat differently than a pizza stone or a wood-fired deck. It gives the bottom crust a deep, even crunch — not the charred blistering of a Neapolitan, not the crisp fold of a New York slice, but a firm, golden base that holds up under the weight of the toppings without going soft. The pan's steep sides create the conditions for the defining feature: the frico edge, where Wisconsin brick cheese melts down the sides of the dough and fries against the hot steel. That edge is the signature. Crispy, lacey, salty, slightly bitter from the caramelization. It's the first thing you taste and the last thing you think about.
The dough is high-hydration, pressed into the pan and left to proof until it fills every corner. The result is thick and airy, more focaccia than flatbread, with an interior crumb that's soft and pillowy while the bottom stays crunchy. The cheese goes on first — traditionally Wisconsin brick cheese, which has a higher fat content and lower melting point than mozzarella, so it spreads to the edges and renders into the crust rather than sitting on top in pools.
The sauce goes on last. After the pizza comes out of the oven, thick stripes of tomato sauce are ladled across the top. The sauce is sweeter and more concentrated than what you'd find on a New York slice. It sits on the surface, warm but not cooked into the cheese, creating a layering effect where every bite gets crust, cheese, and sauce in distinct, identifiable layers rather than the unified melt of a traditional pizza.
The Pepperoni
Every Slice entry starts with the margherita. Buddy's doesn't make a margherita. This is not a margherita tradition. So the benchmark shifts to the pizza that defines the house: the Detroiter, which is Buddy's pepperoni with the racing stripes of tomato sauce.
I ordered it at the Six Mile and Conant location on a Wednesday evening. The pan came to the table still sizzling. The rectangle was golden-brown at the edges, with the cheese crust forming an unbroken ring around the perimeter. The pepperoni had curled into small cups in the oven, each one holding a tiny reservoir of rendered fat and spice. The sauce stripes ran diagonally across the top in the pattern that every Detroit-style imitator copies.
The first bite was a corner piece, which at Buddy's is the whole argument. Corner pieces get two frico edges instead of one. The cheese crust crunches, the dough inside is pillowy and warm, the pepperoni delivers a smoky heat, and the stripe of sauce across the top adds brightness. The layers stay distinct. You can taste each component separately, which is not how a Neapolitan or a New York slice works. Those styles meld. Detroit-style stacks.
The middle pieces are a different experience. Softer, more bread-forward, with a thicker layer of cheese and less crunch. On a lesser Detroit-style pizza, the middle sags. At Buddy's, the middle holds. The dough has enough structure from the long proof to support the toppings without collapsing, and the bottom crust stays firm all the way to the center of the pan.
Beyond the Classic
The Veggie is Buddy's attempt to prove the pan works without pepperoni as a crutch. Green peppers, onions, mushrooms, black olives, tomatoes. The vegetables release moisture in the oven, which on a thin crust would be a problem. In the deep pan, the thick dough absorbs it. The mushrooms brown on top rather than steaming, and the onions caramelize into the cheese layer.
I ordered it on my second visit, expecting it to be the lesser pizza. It wasn't. The Veggie makes a different case for the style — that the pan and the cheese edge are the real stars, and the toppings are supporting cast. The pepperoni version is more iconic, but the Veggie is more revealing. If the style holds up with five vegetables instead of cured meat, the style is doing real work.
Four Entries In
Four pizzas. Four traditions. Four entirely different arguments about what pizza is supposed to be.
Mani Osteria runs wood-fired Neapolitan on East Liberty. The crust is puffy, blistered, and chewy. The toppings are Italian and seasonal. The pizza stands alone — no pairing needed, no side hustle. The margherita is the benchmark for restraint.
Supino Pizzeria runs New York-style thin crust at Eastern Market. The fold is clean. The consistency spans nearly two decades. The white pizza with arugula and lemon is still the most elegant single pizza in the series. Supino is the benchmark for repetition as craft.
Jolly Pumpkin runs wood-fired pizza in a sour brewery in Dexter. The crust is dry and charred, built to share the table with a La Roja. The Pumpkin Poblano is the most creative single pizza in the series. Jolly Pumpkin is the benchmark for pairing.
Buddy's runs Detroit-style in a blue steel pan. The crust is thick and airy. The frico edge is the defining feature. The pepperoni Detroiter with racing stripes is the most iconic single pizza in the series. Buddy's is the benchmark for a style that started here and went national.
If you want a pizza that's a study in minimalism, go to Mani. If you want consistency refined into something approaching perfection, go to Supino. If you want a pizza that was built for the beer beside it, go to Jolly Pumpkin. If you want to understand why Detroit-style pizza is on menus in cities that couldn't find Conant Street on a map, go to Buddy's. The rectangle started here.
The Slice verdict: Strong fourth entry. The Detroiter pepperoni is the most structurally distinct pizza in the series — a rectangle in a field of circles, sauce on top instead of under the cheese, corner pieces that are fundamentally different from center pieces. Buddy's earns its spot not just on flavor but on significance. This is the pizza that launched a national style, and it's still being made in the same pans, in the same city, with the same cheese-to-the-edge commitment that made it matter in the first place.
This is part of The Slice: Best Pizza in Ann Arbor, our ongoing series.