Jonah Swartz pulls a pizza from the oven. Sarah Katherine Sisk | Collegian

The pizza shop now offers counter-service lunch and subscriptions for fresh bread

Local pizza restaurant St. Joe’s Café has expanded its menu and hours, as well as introduced a sourdough bread subscription service after a successful first couple of months, according to owners Joshua and Hannah Mincio.

The expanded menu now offers lunch service in addition to dinner, which was previously the only option since the restaurant’s late October opening.

“When we first opened, it was just for dinner, and so I think a lot of people saw it as a dinner restaurant,” Joshua Mincio said. “Our lunch is a lot more casual. It’s a lot faster than our dinner. It’s quick counter service.”

The counter-service lunch offers Roman-style pizza — a thick ciabatta crust with American toppings such as pepperoni and sausage — as well as salads and Italian street sandwiches.

“We designed it to be more in tune with the rhythm of people’s days, because not everyone can just blow an hour on lunch,” Hannah Mincio said. “As nice as it would be to live in a world like that, we need to make something that’s quick, easy, really inexpensive, and you won’t be sleepy after you eat it.”

The Mincios said St. Joe’s has become a hub for local workers on their lunch break in Hillsdale.

John Biscaro ’22 and wine director for Dante’s, said he frequents St. Joe’s on his lunch hour.

“They do a really good job,” Biscaro said. “They have really awesome prices for lunch, especially. All of this stuff is made from scratch, and it’s really refreshing.”

St. Joe’s offers two lunch specials — the “One Slice Special” and “Two Slice Special” — which include Roman-style pizza, a side salad, and a drink or dessert.

Upon introducing the lunch menu, St. Joe’s also expanded its hours to include lunchtime Tuesday through Saturday, as well as temporarily extended dinner hours for the upcoming Hillsdale College Parents’ Weekend.

“Our first Parents’ Weekend was crazy. We felt bad because we had to turn away a lot of people,” Hannah Mincio said. “That’s the most heartbreaking feeling.”

St. Joe’s will be open from 4:30-10 p.m. on Friday and Saturday this week, an hour and a half longer than usual, to accommodate larger crowds.

“We’re gonna stay open later and open a little bit earlier because we’ve already had a lot of people asking, ‘I’m coming to visit my daughter, can I have a reservation?’” Hannah Mincio said. “Hopefully, we can see more people.”

In addition to lunch and dinner, St. Joe’s introduced a sourdough bread subscription, allowing patrons to pick up a loaf of traditional sourdough for $6 each week.

“The heart behind the bread subscription program is that we wanted good bread to be accessible. Right now, from a financial and practical perspective, a lot of people are too busy to make their own bread,” Hannah Mincio said. “The good thing about having a commercial kitchen is you can make a lot of bread at once. That means you can sell it at a lower price and hopefully fill that need.”

Biscaro said he participates in the sourdough service and picks up his loaf every week.

“A lot of times we sell out of bread, and then people come in and they’re so sad because we don’t have any bread to give them,” Hannah Mincio said. “With the bread subscription, your loaf is the loaf you’re gonna get. And then you save a little bit of money, too.”

The Mincios said they are grateful for the patience the community has shown as they continue to grow.

“It’s been nice because people have been pretty patient with the fact that we didn’t have appetizers for the first couple of months,” Hannah said. “It’s getting to feel like a more well-rounded restaurant as time goes on.”

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