St. Joe’s Cafe served pizza in the dining hall for lunch on Oct. 16 and will be returning to campus to cater at “El Clasico,” the protestant-Catholic intramural soccer game in Hayden Park, for a meal swipe, on Oct. 25.
Metz Culinary Management expects the events to be the beginning of a partnership with the local pizzeria, as Metz explores more ways to bring variety into the dining hall, according to Todd Gerry, general manager of Hillsdale College Dining.
“Our pizzas are great, but it’s just nice to, every once in a while, have something different and spark some fun,” Gerry said.
St. Joe’s Cafe is a European-style cafe in downtown Hillsdale that features a small menu with quality items, including artisan 12” and Detroit-style pizzas made without seed oils. On Thursday, the cafe served Detroit-style pizza with toppings such as cheese, pepperoni, sausage and prosciutto, and arugula. It opened in October 2024.
Senior Jihye Kim said she appreciated both the flavor and the healthiness of St. Joe’s Pizza on Thursday.
“I don’t usually eat pizza in Saga because of seed oils, but St. Joe’s Pizza is seed oil-free and crisped to perfection,” Kim said. “It reminds me of my childhood in France — that’s how good it is. Please come back!”
Gerry said he decided to bring St. Joe’s to the dining hall after visiting the restaurant and enjoying the pizza.
“It was brought to my attention that they have good pizza, so I went in for lunch and had some conversation with them, and kind of saw that that was more of a unique item,” Gerry said. “And then figured it would be a good product for the students, and especially with it being close, it’s within walking distance, and kind of rejuvenates the downtown Hillsdale, so just trying to bring the students to the community.”
Joshua Minico, the owner of St. Joe’s Cafe, said bringing the pizza to the dining hall helped him market his pizza.
“In part, it’s helping me as a young business owner to get more people eating the pizza and knowing what we’re doing,” Minico said. “And then also, it just helps Metz give something really nice to the students for whatever special occasion they might want.”
Gerry said St. Joe’s helped Metz to manage food service during a busy time.
“The idea is to offset the busy times and be able to use local or a product that’s easy to get to the students that they appreciate, when we can’t provide it,” Gerry said.
Minico said Metz is interested in bringing his pizza to future campus events.
“We’ll be setting up occasional sporting events when they need help, or if they’d ever like to have us back in the dining hall and Metz offers to put us on the calendar,” Minico said.
Additionally, Minico said this weekend his downtown restaurant will be serving lattes and pastries from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Friday and Saturday, and operate with extended hours due to Parent’s Weekend, opening 30 minutes earlier and closing 30 minutes later than usual.
