You’d be hard-pressed to find a more perfect pairing on a summer day than a piping hot pizza and a cold adult beverage. Pizza chefs Kyle Young and Bobby Rosenberger teamed up with Mothfire Brewing using a converted school bus with a wood-fired oven to bring Ann Arborites the sublime joyful pairing.
Kyle and Bobby bonded in the kitchen at Mani Osteria and ventured out on their own to various Metro Detroit restaurants such as Grey Ghost and The Detroit Club then joined forces for the Lil’ Montana’s pop-up at York in 2022. At Lil’ Montana’s the two crafted their vision for elevated street food doing takes on cheesesteaks and banh mi.
When their run at HOMES Campus and York ended Kyle and Bobby decided that pizza was a true culinary love and that their years at Mani (and other restaurants) had given them the proper disposition to give a pizza food truck a go. They outfitted a 2013 Chevy Starcraft handicapped bus (it took 16 months to repurpose) and paired up with Mothfire Brewing to be the flagship food truck there.
The Carrozza pizza menu is always on rotation and of course they have the standard margherita, tomato pie and pizza bianca (no sauce) but Kyle and Bobby have traveled around the country for inspiration in search of pizza perfection. A logical destination was Connecticut where White Clam pizza originates. The storied Yale stomping grounds of New Haven seats Pepe’s and Sally’s, the two founding pillars of clam apizza.
They brought back a love for the clam apizza and it tends to be the most popular mainstay pie on their menu. The boys have been generous with yours truly and of the three outstanding pizzas they let me try, I rank them as follows: the white pie is just decadent goodness, offsets any day-drinking you did while forgetting to eat that day, simple perfection; the tomato or marinara pie is closer to my Southern Italian roots because anything without red sauce was not considered Italian from my family’s perspective (Sicilian-American); but my favorite thus far is the Spicy Capicola Pie with toum and a touch of heat provided by Calabrian chiles.
Kyle and Bobby keep the favorites on the menu but they’re always tinkering, like any good chefs. Their Green Curry Vegan pie is another top seller and you’ve got other non-traditional flourishes like the White Potato Bacon pie with fingerling potatoes, garlic cream, bacon jam, jalapenos and aged gouda or the Risotto Mushroom pie. For St. Patty’s Day they did a corned beef pizza and they’ve been expanding the menu doing things like meatball parm sandwiches or cannellini beans and collard greens with applewood smoked bacon, parmesan, lemon and a flatbread.
While the food truck by Mothfire is wildly popular and sustainable, Kyle and Bobby have larger ideas in mind. Kyle and Bobby recently bought the old liquor store at 1027 Broadway and will turn it into a brick-and-mortar restaurant within three years. This area of Ann Arbor is already poised for foot traffic with Lowertown Bar, Information Entropy and Northside Grill nearby.
The winters are long and arduous in Michigan, but summer provides the rub. Carrozza’s will be serving up a slice of heaven alongside Mothfire’s potent potables while the sun shines during Ann Arbor’s golden months. As Mark Twain once penned: “warm summer sun, shine kindly here.” Nothing is new under the sun but experience a piece of perfection with a Carrozza’s pie.
