Trenton Pizzeria Attracts Loyal Customers with Classic Food, Retro Style

Stepping into Del’s Pizzeria is like stepping into a bygone era.

Classic arcade machines such as Ms. Pac-Man and Arch Rivals line the entryway into the bar and dining areas, with wood-paneled walls and old black-and-white photos of years past adding décor and a sense of history to one of the last family-owned restaurants in the area.

“We’ve been here for 58 years,” explained Maria Mazzella, who has been operating the West Jefferson-located business since her husband’s retirement nearly 10 years ago.

Mazzella’s family has operated other pizza restaurants even before Del’s Pizzeria. She said that before coming to Michigan from New York City, they had opened up a pizzeria there.

“If you can make it with pizza in New York City, you can make it anywhere,” she mused, adding that their New York restaurant is still open.

Mazzella also recalled when her father had opened their first shop in Michigan, Gino’s Pizzeria, in Detroit at Mack and Mt. Elliott. At the time, there were practically no pizzerias in the area and her father had to explain what a “pizza pie” was to customers. Two girls had come in and asked for slices, thinking they were the same thing as a fruit pie.

“He had to teach them,” she said.

Since opening their Trenton restaurant in 1953, Del’s Pizzeria food and old-fashioned style has attracted a loyal clientele that has been coming in for years.

“We’ve been coming here since we were teenagers,” said Rose Horvath, eating dinner with her husband Dick. “They make a lot of homemade stuff.”

Indeed, Mazzella makes a variety of special dishes that have proven to be popular menu items, such as the house special spaghetti, which features meatballs, mushrooms, onions green peppers, Italian sausage and pepperoni. They also features homemade lasagna, stuffed shells and the house special pizza, which has pepperoni, mushrooms, green peppers, onions, bacon, Italian sausage and ham.

While the prices are not especially cheap, they are not particularly high either, a sentiment that Mazzella echoed and one that has led to Del’s Pizzeria getting fans from places like Toledo or Detroit.

Opening primarily in the evening for the dinner crowd, business tends to pick up at Del’s Pizzeria after six o’clock, when the restaurant does “pretty good business,” according to Mazzella.

In some ways Del’s Pizzeria seems like one of the last bastions of a time when many restaurants were local, family-owned affairs. Mazzella hopes that they’ll keep going when the others did not, though.

“There were so many around at one time,” she explained. “But we hope to stick around.”