Pizza King

Where can you get your pizza fix in the middle of a nearly-​deserted town on the Illinois/​Indiana border on a Sunday evening? Pizza King, apparently.
Found on an empty Main Street with the occasional resident driving by on a gold cart, Pizza King is tucked away between a Chinese restaurant and some kind of store. Small and dim with wood paneling on the walls and ancient tables/​booths, it’s not impressive. The place needs an update, as well as the rest of the town. Yet, that was sort of the charm. (And thankfully, the bathrooms were nice enough!)
The girl that greeted us and took our order was very bubbly and pleasant. She seemed thrilled to see us, which made me feel appreciated and welcomed. The manager/​owner/​boss person on the other hand, didn’t seem as happy, and was a bit grumpy when handling our payment.
Our medium (14″) cheese pizza was done in twenty minutes, on a delicious thin crust. The cheese and sauce were fine. For being the only place in town (other than Pizza Hut) to get pizza, Pizza King wasn’t bad. We got our pizza fix, which was all we needed.

Pizza King is so much of a hole in the wall that the insulation board that was put up around an air conditioner over the door was never covered after it was put up and still is exposed after almost a decade. A poster-​sized photograph of Miss Hoopeston 2009 enjoying a large pizza entreats you to come on in. On the wall there is a board dedicated to local kids serving in the military and a board with outlined pictures of the King which were colored by children. Even though the health department rating on the wall is a A with a score of 98, cleanliness is not going to be something that you are particularly assured of (especially in the bathroom).
But this is a all a cunning disguise. There’s a reason that people refer to this place as «The King.»
The pizza is really terrific. All the toppings are hand ground or chopped small – a technique that works particularly wonders on pepperoni and sausage (that combination is the de facto specialty of the house). The Pizza King is a little meat centric. The pizzas are all this kind of this hybrid thin crust – it’s a little crunchy and chewy at the same time. The only complaint I have with the pizza is a little greasy, but that’s nothing that a dab from three or four or five napkins won’t take care of.
You can also get salads (nothing special except that they provide a light counterpoint to the heavy pizza) and sandwiches (which are fine, but I’d never opt for a sandwich over the pizza).
One final note: Pizza King is a local chain throughout Indiana and eastern Illinois. This restaurant is affiliated with that chain, but all of the restaurants are independently owned and operate. I have been to other Pizza Kings and found them to be nothing particularly special. I don’t know exactly what they’re doing up in Hoopeston, but it’s different and it’s really pretty great.