Pizza Haven, like Ron Burgundy, was kind of a big deal. Founded in the University District in the ’50s, it grew to include 42 franchises and 700 employees, with retail operations in Russia and the Middle East.
Now there’s but one Pizza Haven left (there are unaffiliated outfits of that name in NYC and Australia), with two employees at a time keeping the heat lamps warm. Fittingly, the last Pizza Haven is in the Center House, quite possibly Seattle’s epicenter of nostalgia. Chihuly, schmihuly; the hordes of tourists and day-camp groups who swarm the Center House’s food court for lunch every day seem blissfully unaware of what’s to become of the Fun Forest or the Seattle Center grounds in general. What other venue in town holds a monthly Community Square Dance, not counting senior centers? Nowhere, that’s where. It’s got an Orange Julius, too; and don’t forget about the Monorail, a World’s Fair–era relic of opportunity lost, which ferries its happy passengers literally from food court to food court (Center House’s to Westlake Center’s) as though riding the mile-long route was somehow tantamount to running it.
Pizza Haven doesn’t make pizza that anyone would confuse with the thin-crust, cilantro-addled boom that’s currently consuming the city. It’s a harkening back to a time before Windows, white rappers, and skinny-jeaned snark, when Shakey’s, Godfather’s, and Pizza & Pipes roamed the earth, serving mediocre, unpretentious pies and pitchers of beer to adult softball teams and 20-tops of 8-year-olds (they drank root beer).
For $7.99 at the last remaining Pizza Haven, you get a medium soda and two slices. The pepperoni is serviceable, but the combo looks like a toy pizza, appearing as though uncooked and layered with plastic orange and white cheese. When you were a kid, you served this slice to your stuffed dog, Fat Henry, who fucking loved it despite the fact that he didn’t technically have a tongue.
Whether you love it depends on how refined your taste buds are. But it’ll fill you up—with nostalgia.
