Restaurants

Welcome, Monical's Pizza

I hate it when my brother gets something I don’t.

Never mind that we’re both in our 40s, adults with professional careers, mortgage payments and all those life balance questions middle-age Americans struggle with. He had a Monical’s Pizza on his side of Indianapolis and I didn’t. And he was always waving it in our face, saying things like, “Hey, you guys want to go over to Monical’s for dinner? The kids love that place.”

See what I mean? That kind of superiority from the kid brother eats at you over time.

Well, nana nana boo boo. Guess who just opened their doors in Greenwood? Yep, now I, too, can enjoy their thin and pan crust pizzas whenever I want to, and I don’t even have to drag along kids. But don’t tell my sibling this secret: I failed to notice this new addition to our restaurant families until last week.

Quality pasta

I blew right by the construction phase at in the strip mall on Smith Valley Road and 135. The space used to be an activity center for seniors, which isn’t exactly a routine stop on my list of things to do, so I had no idea they’d gone to that business address in the sky. Then my friend’s daughter informed her out of the blue one day not to eat there because they’d hired someone she didn’t like.

And that’s how we discovered Monical’s Pizza was our new neighbor.

So naturally it is on our lunch circuit now, if only to laughingly demonstrate to Miss Teen-Ager that we can eat anywhere we want, thank you very much. Or at least that was my friend’s original motivation. I already knew they have great pizza at prices that will blow your mind, even in our sale-heavy recession atmosphere. My bill for a 20 oz Coke and 8″ cheese pizza came to a whopping $5.50. What’s more, if I’m not in the mood for pizza (and while we’re confessing secrets, that happens a lot to me), they are just as strong in sandwich and pasta entrees.

This isn’t one of those places where they throw on a couple of additional items on the menu to appease the pizza-challenged among us, and then serve something they half-heartedly whipped up in the microwave as your punishment for straying.

Priced for families

The decor is rather fun as well, with scripted inspirational quotes everywhere that can’t help but make you smile. They also have a black-and-white photograph of a local telephone pole displaying the names of players on our state championship high school football team hanging on their wall. That’s a big deal to my family because they picked the pole that honors the player we know on that team. Little details like that go a long way in blending a restaurant into a community, and ensure we’ll feel comfortable enough to come back.

Oh, and to my brother: When are you going to get a Famous Dave’s?

Monical’s Pizza

1675 W. Smith Valley Road

Greenwood, IN 46142

(317) 881-1177

Photography: Monical’s Pizza