Pizza shop offering giant slices to open in Stadium District

A pizza oven will be firing 18-inch pizzas until 3 a.m. each weekend starting with this latest addition to downtown Lansing’s pizza scene.

Specializing in slices, Good Slice Pizza Co. will host a soft opening Thursday. The pizzeria will share a space with Taps 25. Pizza and alcohol can be interchanged between venues.

Good Slice will cut its large pies into six pieces, perfect for folding up and getting that hot-dog-eating head tilt. About those hot dogs — the establishment will serve a coney dog pizza,  among other off-the-wall creations. 

Co-owners Scott VanGilder and Jerome White saw a void in local businesses in the downtown pizza scene and took advantage of it.

White owns Taps 25, The Loft and Media Advantage businesses next door to Good Slice.

“One of the things we’ve been talking about for years is having the ability to serve food at Taps and serve food to service the whole building,” White said. “This space is a great space to not only service the bar, but to be a standalone business itself.” 

VanGilder brings three years of previous pizza shop experience to the table. The pair said the focus on slices comes from the mission of fast, fresh food convenience.

“One thing is being in the area we are at, a lot of people want something portable on the go, whether they are going to a bar or going to a game. We want something for people to easily get, sit down and eat it here or, take it home,” White said. 

“Piggie Smalls” is the signature pizza with sausage, bacon and ham. Good Slice will offer five main pizzas to expect with a daily rotating special.

The team is developing a dill pickle pizza, he added.

“We’ve been experimenting with a lot of things, some truly phenomenal and others god awful. We are just two normal guys who like to make crazy pizzas.” 

Its sauce is a signature blend developed by Stan’s Sauce and the Good Slice general manager Shane Smith. There will also be a gluten-free crust option. In addition to pizza, cookies, pretzel and classic breadsticks will be offered along with four types of salads. 

The centerpiece to the pizza making operation will be Good Slice’s Turbochef oven. Using convection, this oven gets to a temperature of 500 degrees and can make a full pizza in three minutes 25 seconds.

A regular pizza oven with an 18-inch pie would struggle to pull that off in around 10 minutes, White said.

“We think collectively, with all of this synergy around the Lansing Center, Cooley and state workers, there is a lot of opportunities for everyone to prosper from what is going on down here,” White said.

For decor, Good Slice will feature pictures of celebrities in classic poses holding slices of pizza. It also will have a wall of framed memes about pizzas.

“You can fold our pizza like New York style, but it is not so thin to where everything slides off it,” VanGilder said. “What do we call that?”

“We call it Lansing style,” White said, on cue.

Good Slice Pizza

Monday to Thursday, 11:30 a.m. to 9 p.m.

Friday, 11:30 a.m. to 3 a.m.

Saturday, 4 p.m. to 3 a.m.

414 E. Michigan Ave., Lansing

www.goodslicepizzaco.com