The Litchfield Pizza House

The Pizza House crust is the recognizable Midwestern-tavern style: very thin, crisp at the edges, cut in squares rather than wedges, and structured to support a generous layer of cheese and topping without bending. The dough is made fresh daily, hand-stretched on a wooden board, and topped with a long-cooked tomato sauce that Tony Marchiando developed in 1958 - garlic-forward, slightly sweet, and finished with crushed red pepper that the family blends in house. The cheese is a provolone-mozzarella blend specifically chosen for its melt and stretch.

The sausage pizza is the most-ordered version, made with hand-formed Italian sausage from a small Springfield butcher the Marchiandos have used since 1969. The pepperoni is a curl-cup style that crisps in the oven and holds little pools of grease in each curl - the way Midwestern tavern pizza is supposed to be. Mushrooms are fresh-sliced, never canned. The pizza is baked on a stone deck in a gas oven Tony installed in 1972; it has been rebuilt twice but never replaced, and the kitchen staff swear it bakes differently than any new oven would.

Special pizzas worth ordering include the Italian Beef Pizza (sliced beef, mozzarella, banana peppers, and au jus on the side for dipping) and the white pizza (no red sauce, ricotta and garlic instead). The Friday fish-fry pizza, available only during Lent, replaces the meat toppings with breaded cod and tartar sauce and is the kind of regional curiosity you cannot find anywhere outside southern Illinois.

The fried ravioli is the second pillar of the Pizza House menu and the appetizer the regulars order without looking at the menu. The ravioli themselves are beef-filled, breaded in a seasoned crumb, deep-fried until golden, dusted with parmesan, and served with the same long-cooked marinara that tops the pizzas. A half order is a dozen ravioli, a full order is two dozen, and most tables order more than they think they need. The recipe is unchanged since the 1960s and is essentially identical to the St. Louis classic.

Italian-American dinners are the next category: spaghetti, mostaccioli, ravioli, lasagna, and the lasagna's slightly heavier cousin, baked mostaccioli. All come with a side salad and Jubelt's garlic bread - a quiet collaboration between the two old Litchfield families that has been going since 1948. The eggplant parmigiana is the vegetarian standout, breaded and fried in-house and baked under mozzarella. Tony's grandson Joe added a vegan tomato pasta in 2019 that has surprised many regulars by becoming a steady seller.

The fried chicken dinner is the off-menu classic that long-time regulars order on Thursdays and Sundays. Three pieces of breaded chicken, fried in the same oil as the ravioli, served with fries and slaw. It is not on the printed menu in the dining room but appears on the chalkboard when the kitchen runs it, and the staff will quote it on request even when it is not on the chalkboard. For dessert, the spumoni and the cannoli are the choices, with the cannoli filled to order.

The bar is a key part of the Pizza House experience. It is a working neighborhood tavern, with a friendly Litchfield crowd, a serviceable beer list heavy on regional and Midwestern brews, a short cocktail list, and several screens showing whatever Cardinals or Blackhawks game is on that night. Drinking at the bar while waiting for a takeout pizza is a Litchfield tradition. The bartender will pour you something and call your name when the pizza comes out of the oven. Friday and Saturday nights bring the busiest crowds, and a 30-minute wait for a table is not unusual.

The dining room welcomes families, and the kids' menu offers small pizzas, spaghetti, and chicken strips at modest prices. The room is loud and lively in the way a good neighborhood pizza joint should be, with conversation easy across booths and the kitchen pass open enough to see the cooks at work. Reservations are not accepted; it is first-come, first-served, with a small bench inside the front door for waiting. The bar will seat single diners and couples without a wait on most nights.

Practical tips for visitors: arrive before 6pm on a Friday or Saturday to avoid the worst of the wait. Order the fried ravioli the moment you sit down because the kitchen makes them to order and they take 15 minutes. Pizzas take another 20 minutes after that, so a full meal is roughly 45 minutes from sit-down to dessert. Cash and cards are accepted, and the takeout window is around the side of the building. The Pizza House is closed on Mondays and major holidays; otherwise it is open year-round and is one of the few Litchfield restaurants that serves a full dinner menu late into the evening.