Sgt. Pepperoni’s
4120 Woodward Ave.
Detroit (inside of Garden Bowl)
Jan. 12, 2026
As time crawls forward and I get older and wiser, the more I’ve come to terms with the fact that Sgt. Pepperoni’s has been slinging some of the best pizza in Detroit for years.
But do we put enough respect on this pizza’s name? New places open, debates about what’s the best slice in town tears families and friendships apart. And through it all, Sgt. Pepperoni’s is there to say, “Hey, want a fresh and greasy slice of pepperoni?”
This is a blue collar, hard-working type of slice. I mean, just think of the amount of drunken bliss this pizza has given you after a concert or a competitive game of bowling in North America’s oldest bowling alley, just steps away from the pizza counter?
The pizza wars have gotten brutal in Detroit. This is the town where mega-pizza chains like Jet’s and Domino’s and Little Caesars have planted their headquarters (major love to Michigan Public’s excellent “Dough Dynasty” podcast for shining a light on why we’re a pizza capital).
Mom-and-pop shops have elevated the pizza game. There are the elevated selections at Grandma Bob’s, which once offered a lobster roll pizza. There’s the New York-style bliss of Supino’s. There’s little debate in town about who currently has the best Detroit-style deep dish pizza: It’s Michigan and Trumbull, which decided to do the simple things simply the best with their Packard pepperoni and its homemade hot honey drizzle and pickled chiles on an otherwise straight-forward pepperoni pie.
So, is Sgt. Pepperoni’s the absolute best slice in town? No.
But when the options were few, if you were looking for something outside of a corporate slice and finding some late night was basically impossible, Sgt. Pepperoni’s was always there for you -- and still is.
It’s time we put some god damn respect on this pizza’s name.
