Bilbo’s Pizza in A Pan

Their menu hasn’t changed in 30 years. It’s not a good thing.
The restaurant is dirty, dark, and in need of updates. Not a fan of their amateur home brews. The staff is the dregs of the table-​waiting college-​dropout population of Kalamazoo – every single burnout sophomore with a Phish sticker on their barely-​running car in town has worked here, usually after being fired from somewhere with higher standards. Their almost universally-​slow, inattentive service is a pretty good guess as to why.
Food is inconsistent at best. Bimbo’s relies heavily on the microwave for appetizers and pasta dishes. Nothing but the pizzas are fresh. Their «thick» crust is usually only about half-​cooked. Sauce is sugary-​sweet. It’s all pretty bad. And I resent the fact that they slap their own label on salad dressing from Gordon Food Service and mark up the price 500%.
There’s better pizza in town for better prices.

Bilbos is my favorite pizza place in Kalamazoo. I can’t count the number of times I’ve been here, but I’ve been going since I started at Western in 2007. Every time I’m back in town I am compelled to grab at least a slice of Dragon Feast (meat lovers) pizza since I am essentially a carnivore, and a small cheese stick with the dill sauce. The dill sauce is a MUST HAVE, even though they started charging extra for it. You may have gathered that everything at Bilbos is Lord of the Rings themed, including the beer they brew. I’ve never been blown away by any of their beers — you can get much better beer pretty much anywhere else in Kalamazoo. However the pan style pizza is where it’s at — a thick dough platform (get that wimpy thin crust outta here), tangy pizza sauce, generous toppings, and a thick layer of cheese. The price is a little more expensive than I’d care for, especially given how many pizza places there are in Kalamazoo, but Bilbos is a Kalamazoo institution. You gotta go here. I’d recommend trying it at lunch time — they have a good «pick 2» deal that features most of their staples for around $ 10 including a drink. So yeah, get to Bilbos… or I guess I should say «fly, you fools!»

Our favorite pizza in Kalamazoo by far! We tried to love Erbelli’s because it’s closer but there’s just no comparison to Bilbo’s. The ingredients taste fresher and the textures more real somehow and we like to mix it up with whole wheat crust. The staff is always kind and professional, especially Andrew, who is an angel!
Bilbo’s chicken noodle soup and minestrone are to die for as well as their famous salad dressing. We’re not huge fans of wings except at home so we’ll leave that review to others.

When my 12 year old son doesn’t eat a slice a pie, we have a problem. I’m not feeling good about spending $ 30 on pizza with 2 toppings, 2 cokes and potato skins. Skins had excessive oil dripping off with tasteless cheese and bacon. 2 prepackaged sour cream containers with the 4 skins for $ 6.50 was the appetizer I should have sent back. Try adding chives and baking the skins. The pizza was undercooked, treated to a doughy flavor that killed the sausage and pepperoni. Cleanliness in the restaurant is an issue, the tables need degreased when the salt and pepper shakers stick in place. Sorry Bilboes but you will not get my vote for Best Pizza in Kalamazoo.

Delicious food. Breadsticks no longer come with dill dip (now have to order it on the side and it’s a little pricey), which is annoying and seems to take away some cool points. But, the salads (must try house dressing!) are great and pizza is amazing. The service is a little crappy –wait staff forget to bring items, overcharge, do not refill drinks, etc.

Fantastic food and pizza. The homemade beer is pretty gross and barely carbonated. And the last time I visited, the staff totally ignored me and I was forced to pretty much just leave.

Stadium location.
Food is average, bar fare. I had pulled pork — skip it… no detectable smoke or rub element other than black pepper and no sauce; the mediocre slaw did not save the slightly dry pork from the uninspired bun.
My wife claims that her cheesy bread with dill dip and her house salad were good and met her recollections (better than average bar fare).
None of the other six members of my party especially praised or berated anything.
Service was beyond awful. Slow, wrong order of delivery (grandma’s soup — an already prepared item, the only item she ordered, came after EVERYTHING else was finally delivered and I asked for it for a third time). Little was delivered without multiple prompts and reminders, which were obviously needed, since the server asked every time she visited whether we needed anything else (uh, yes — our food, and drinks… you know, the ones we ordered previously).
Cheap eats, but the food’s too average to deserve a repeat run in light of the service.

OK … I have fond memories of the Bilbo’s in E. Lansing. I didn’t go there often, because the pizza was a bit pricey for my college budget. But I do remember the delicious dill dip and bread sticks. Fast forward several years and to a different city. We are in Kzoo and we are in the market for dinner/​carry out. I say BILBO’S!
I place an order, it’s ready on time, we take it home, I dip a cheesy bread stick into the creamy dill deliciousness! Pure awesome! The pizza on the other hand was too bready. The flavors weren’t great. It was a disappointment. I guess they have thin crust, which was not what we ordered, but perhaps we should have. Maybe next time. No actually, next time I will just get the bread sticks and dill dip. If I want pizza when I’m in Kzoo, I’ll head to Martini’s!

I wish I had just heated up the frozen pizza in my freezer; it would have had more flavor than Bilbo’s. The sauce is weirdly sweet, the crust is doughy and flavorless, and the cheese doesn’t add much. I just moved to Kalamazoo and this came highly recommended, but I couldn’t be more disappointed.

Value: FAR too expensive for what you get. You get a relatively well-​sized large, but considering the issues below is it really a value?
Texture: The crust has no crisp; just soft, chewy, bready pizza. The edges have SOME crisp, but the main part of the pizza tastes and feels like it was made out of regular bread dough and not pizza dough. You get a fair amount of cheese and sauce, but the bread-​to-​toppings ratio has far more bread than toppings.
Taste: Pretty good, but whatever they are using for dough ruins it. I got the pan style instead of the thin crust, which (I’d at least hope) would be crispier, but I shouldn’t have to trade thickness for crisp.
Summary: All of which I wouldn’t have a huge issue with if the pizza wasn’t $ 28. I’m about $ 10 happy with it. I’ve been more satisfied with Little Caesars to be honest, and I know that might sound pretty harsh but LC is pretty decent — acidic sauce, boring but passable pepperoni, but a pretty good crust. I usually like artisan/​local pizza places like this, but eh — I’d save myself the trouble and get a slightly cheaper pizza at Jet’s or Erbelli’s.

I really like the pizza here. But a small pie (that’s 4 little slices) for 14.75? It’s not that good. The dough is often undercooked and I can’t remember a time when there wasn’t at least one mistake with a carry-​out order. It’s tasty but it might not be worth the trouble any more.

We came to the Kalamazoo area from Chicago and this was a great place to eat at during our 3-​day stay in Kalamazoo. We had come here as a recommendation from someone who used to live in Kalamazoo.
Kalamazoo has so many breweries that we figured we would ask for a beer sampler here. You get about 6 shots of beer to sample out and all their craft beers are Fantasy themed/​named. I preferred the honey blond beer they served here, I wish I remembered the name of the beer. After sampling the beers, we ordered our meals. I ended up getting the Dragon feast personal pizza which was made on a delicious wheat crust. I have never had pizza on a wheat crust so this made the experience all the more better. The dragon feast is basically a meat lovers pizza. My friend ended up getting a wrap which looked delicious as well.
The lovely service was conducted by our nice waitress Lauren. I am glad she made our first visit here a great one. The overall look of Bilbo’s is interesting. With tables having writing all over them as décor, I thought that was interesting to see that they kept that part of the décor/​furniture. The service was quick and the atmosphere of this place is relaxing and very chill. I definitely want to come back to Kalamazoo in the near future and Bilbo’s will be on my list of places to stop at when I come here.

Before I talk about the food, I have to talk about our waiter! His name was Jason and he was great! He was helpful, funny and his laugh is contagious! So a big thanks to Jason for making our meal extra pleasant!
We ordered sandwiches for our meal and a pizza to go. The sandwiches all are numbered and have funny names. We ordered #15 (It Took 13 Strong Dwarves to Carry This), #21 (King Rob’s Meatball Sub) and #24 (Merry’s Best). They were all good, but the surprise was #15, it is salami and tuna salad… I know, it sounds a little strange but it is delicious! Glad Jason recommended it because I am a tuna snob and usually only eat that at home.
The pizza reheated nice when we got home, I did it in the oven at 350 for about 10 minutes.
All the way around, we were happy with our meal!

This was my second time coming here. I didn’t like my first time. Because I had a cheese pizza OVERFILLED with tomato sauce! How surprising that they pulled off this time. It was a good deal. I got the family dinner. Because I was with family. Our drinks came out before the salad. (That’s a good running start!) and then the salad came out. It was a nice salad. I liked it. Later the pizza came. It was sausage. I love sausage! I ate it. All I have to say is… It came out real hot. But it was good… «This place is awesome! «You shall not pass”-Gandolf. Yep cool.»

A bit let down at Bilbo’s. My girlfriend and I traveled to spend the holiday weekend in Kalamazoo. The only thing this place seems to get right is naming food after the Hobbit franchise and Lord of the Rings. What it got wrong was the flat but decently tasting Dragon Red Ale beer, the not crispy pan pizza, the fact they forgot to put pepperoni on the pizza, and then taking over ten minutes to pick up the payment when the check was brought. I was expecting better but alas my experience was not very strong. Others seem to like it though. Eat at your own risk.

My new favorite wine: Blue Heron

Incredible pizza! I don’t know why the low stars. Make sure and try their family salad with their special house dressing. Whole wheat crust pizza as well… All great to me and mine.

Great pizza and atmosphere! The missed star goes to the mediocre breadsticks — apparently the garlic breadsticks with dill sauce is where it’s at. Other than that, the pizza and service were great. We had a large group with a whole mess of kids who loved the game room. The TVs were great — we had some particularly rowdy football fans in attendance so that was entertaining.
The service was the most impressive though. We had coupons on our phone and apparently they were supposed to be printed, but they still let us use them and it saved us $ 7 on pizza! We had a pepperoni and sausage deep dish and salad. The pizza was legit, again, but the salad — whatever dressing they use is pretty much magic. Anyways, back to the service — the server managed about 10 adults and 5 kids with ease. Everything came out in a timely manner and deliciously hot.
My mouth is watering just thinking about it. If you’re looking for a great pizza joint, check it out! :)

Bilbos is by far the best pizza place in Kalamazoo! You get options there– who doesn’t love options?! Pizza served in a pan is better than the thin crust, but if your a thin crust pizza eater it’s still delicious. Pizza and cheesy sticks come with an option of white or wheat crust– which is fantastic. The dill dip is a must for anything you order… dip away friends and you will not be mad. Their salad dressing is homemade and it’s a great creamy italian served simply with cheese and croutons, you don’t need anything else trust me.
I do need to mention they also brew their own beer which you can take home in one of their awesome jugs. You will not be disappointed!

I want to love Bilbo’s because their pizza is so good. If this were just a quality of pizza review, this location would receive a 4.6÷5. Except when they receive a 1.2÷5 or a 2.1÷5 or a 3.4÷5.
Why is that, you ask? Because they are inconsistent. This is somewhat of their charm, like when you go to pick up your hippie cousin to take him to his court appearance and he is still wearing his underwear and watching reruns of Ren and Stimpy. You find this sort of behavior endearing, and you wonder, often in frustration, what he is going to do next.
Sometimes the pizza is overdone, sometimes it is underdone. Sometimes the order comes out wrong, or the waitress forgets to come to your table for 20 minutes while you have screaming/​fighting children (maybe this is why she stays away…). It becomes a game of Bilbo’s living up to their potential. Will the pizza be amazing, or will they make pizza like the Lions play football? The ability is always there but it is rarely realized.
So, I will continue to go to Bilbo’s, in part because it is 1 mile from my house, and in part because the theatre of pizza making is worth the price of admission, whether it turns out to be Lawrence of Arabia or Ishtar.