About Cloverleaf
Serving up “The original motor city square” pizza since 1946
Cloverleaf founder Gus Guerra developed a game-changer in the pizza market. What we now know as the “Detroit Style” square pizza was unheard of seven decades ago in Detroit, or anywhere else. He had one main goal in mind: to create the very best pizza the Detroit area had ever tasted.
Gus started with the basics, his first bar and restaurant-Buddy’s Rendezvous, and his wife Anna Passalacqua’s traditional thick-crust family pizza recipe. Next came crafting the masterpiece. Perfect, crispy thick crust, followed by a savory spiced sauce, then topped with a thick layer of cheese and finished off with hand-cut premium meats and vegetables. All these ingredients were baked to perfection in a traditional stone oven. His creation was an immediate success, no one had ever tasted anything quite like this before. The original Detroit-style square pizza was born.
In 1953, Guerra decided to part ways with his Buddy’s Rendezvous partners and purchase the Cloverleaf Bar and Restaurant in East Detroit (now Eastpointe). This local neighborhood bar soon became the talk of the town and was packed with families hungry for Gus’s one-of-a-kind “Motor City Square.”
When it comes to perfecting the perfect pizza, Gus knew that it was all in the details. It starts with the dough, which is made fresh daily. Produce is purchased each day from local suppliers, where it is carefully inspected and then hand-sliced. Premium-quality meats are cut to the perfect thickness adding robust flavor to each pizza. The chefs carefully hand-prepare each pizza before the final step of baking which is completed in a traditional deck oven.
The original Cloverleaf has earned much of its success on the eastside due to customers making this their regular destination for Detroit-style pizza, and family tradition.
The original Cloverleaf family recipe hasn’t changed in 68 years, standing by the premium quality that customers have continued to love for generations.
Cloverleaf has received many awards for its legendary pizza since 1946. The most recent award was one of the ‘101 Best Pizzas in America’ by the Daily Meal.
If there’s one thing that shouldn’t change, it’s perfection.
