I don’t expect you to have heard of North Adams. The town is literally a crossroads with a blinking yellow light suspended in the center, and from what I can tell, this does not cause anyone to slow down or speed up.It does host a nudist colony (in the summers, though, in case you were wondering how that worked), and quite a few Amish people. In North Adams, bars have not been allowed to sell liquor since before Prohibition, which “is a major bummer” according to the very kind locals I talked to. It’s about 10 minutes northeast of Hillsdale out in the cornfields. Just Google it.
I found myself there with friends a few weeks ago. I had discovered the place while looking on old maps, and, as it was the last place in Hillsdale county I really hadn’t been, I wanted to see what it contained. There are two restaurants in North Adams: The Coffeehouse, which doesn’t really have much to do with coffee but does have good pie, and Johnson’s Pizza and Subs, which “sells the best pizza in Hillsdale County.”
The title of best pizza was not applied by me originally, although I agree with it; it came from the mouth of Randy Johnson, the pizza shop’s owner and an all-around stand-up guy. He bought the place a few years back and runs it with his sons, who are each about three times the size of Randy but share his penchant for hospitality and friendliness. In the back of the very small pizza restaurant is a very large pub, although they bring you your pizza into the pub if you want it, so maybe they’re just the same thing.
First, let me make it clear that the pizza is incredible, particularly for the price. For $5 you get a four-topping, 10-inch personal pizza that will blow away any “personal pizza” you got for reading books at your local library when you were six. The crust is first class, and they use the correct flour (pizza’s should be made with high-protein, low-water absorption flour, like 00 flour) in order to get that classic thin crust that seems to be missing in so many Midwestern pies (Oh, you like Chicago-style? That’s not a pizza. It’s a casserole). They also use great mozzarella at Johnson’s; commonly-used cheeses like colby-jack or cheddar, though cheaper, make a greasier pizza. These types of cheeses contain fats that dichotomize at high temperatures, forming a shell of grease on the top of the pizza. The toppings are also fresh, and the meat brings you back to when you were a kid and thought that pepperoni was probably the greatest thing God put on this earth.
The beer selection is decent as well. They have about eight taps, which are mostly domestics, but they do cycle through a variety of craft beers as well. The beer is also incredibly cheap –– if you go at happy hour, which lasts until 6 p.m., you can get a craft beer for two bucks. Be sure to look at the bar as you grab a beer; for $5 you can carve your name into it and it has seen it’s fair share of interesting customers.
The atmosphere is eccentric. Deer heads hang on the wall, the tables look like they came out of a public high school cafeteria in the 60’s, and a Confederate flag bearing the logo of the local biker gang hangs above the free pool table. It’s a cozy eccentric, though, and I enjoy it thoroughly.
Johnson’s is perhaps one of the most unabashedly old-school midwestern places I have ever been, from the people to the food to the lack of liquor. I heartily recommend it to anyone looking to get out of Hillsdale for a bite but not wanting to go too far.
