Kalako Pizza has opened its doors at 10420 Portage Road, filling the space once occupied by the beloved Chicago Style Pizza, which closed in 2023 after 44 years.
Kody Asakevich, the owner of Kalako Pizza, has deep ties to the area. He fondly remembers visiting Chicago Style Pizza as a child, too short to see over the counter. Now, he serves his own unique pizza from that same counter.
Since its opening in December, Kalako Pizza has been a hit with the community. “The community showed us love from day one. We had lines out the door and tickets on the floor,” Asakevich said. The pizzeria has been serving between 70 and 100 pizzas a day.
Asakevich, a graduate of the Culinary Institute of Michigan, never expected to return to Portage after high school. But after marrying and settling in the community, he developed a passion for food. He built a stone oven at his farm and began perfecting his pizza-making skills. In March 2023, he and his wife, Leah, launched Kalako Street Cuisine, a food truck.
The name “Kalako” is a blend of Kalamazoo and Kody. “I’m a Kalamazoo boy, born and raised,” Asakevich explained. “I love the city, and the name just popped into my head.”
By 2024, Asakevich was ready to open a permanent location. He saw the vacant restaurant space and realized it was the perfect opportunity. “This used to be my favorite restaurant as a kid, and my dad even worked here on the side,” he said. “We wanted to keep the community spirit alive.”
Kalako Pizza aims to be a neighborhood spot where service and quality are top priorities. “We just want to be that neighborhood pizza place where people feel comfortable coming,” Asakevich said.
Kalako offers a variety of pizzas, including hand-tossed New York-style pies and deep-dish Chicago-style pizza. The dough is made fresh daily, and the cheese is shredded in-house for better meltability. The red sauce is made fresh and evenly applied to the dough, topped with garlic butter, parmesan, and greens once the pizza comes out of the oven.
Two of the most popular items are the deep-dish pizza and the double-crust pizza, which features crust on both the bottom and top. Prices for build-your-own pizzas start at $9.70 for a small (10-inch) pizza, with larger sizes going up to $18.09 for an XL (16-inch). Specialty pizzas, like the potato bacon pizza, are also available.
In addition to pizza, Kalako offers pasta, salads, and sandwiches. One standout is the Muffuletta sandwich, priced at $11.50, which features layers of salami, ham, mortadella, provolone cheese, olive tapenade, and garlic aioli, all stuffed into homemade sourdough focaccia bread.
The menu also includes smoked and seasoned wings, which Asakevich claims are the best in the city, and homemade desserts like strawberry shortcake, tiramisu, and brownies, all for $6.
When warmer weather arrives, Kalako Street Cuisine will return outside the pizzeria on Fridays to sell its popular burgers. Asakevich also plans Texas-style BBQ takeovers on the last Sunday of each month.
“We just love feeding people,” he said.
Kalako Pizza is open Wednesday through Sunday from 3 p.m. to 10 p.m. and is closed on Mondays and Tuesdays. To place an order, visit their website or call (269) 999-3566.
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