Riverside Bar & Pizzeria

The reviews that rate this place less than 4 stars are out of their minds.
Riverside has the best pizza in North America. Some people just want to find the negatives and complain. The place has been producing great pizza for over 50 years.
The crust is cracker thin and crispy. The sauce is tomato based and not overly spiced. The sausage is seasoned to perfection and the cheese is wonderful.
The fact they cut the pizza into small squares is unique and makes each piece «bite sized».
We love the sausage, mushroom and pepperoncini pizza.

I’ve been coming to Iron River for 33 years and the trip always starts with pizza at Riverside. Thin crust, fantastic sausage, burn your mouth hot! A tradition that I hope continues for many years.

I LOVE Riverside Pizza. My favorite UP treat! (Next up — Scott’s subs!)
I’ve been going for 26 years and there really is nothing like it. Sweet yet tangy sauce, super thin crusty crust, and awesome sausage & cheese!
We live in Chicago and have a summer house in Iron River and we have NEVER skipped a Riverside pizza night. We like to go and get a seat at the bar, have a few beers (Keweenaw local Beer!), and chat up some regulars. They also have an old jukebox, and two arcade games — Timber & Buck Hunter!
Two of us get 2 large pizzas, always a #8. Love their pepperoncinis and sausage! Such yummy toppings. You will be happy you have leftovers, trust me!

This place is great. I think I’ve been coming here for 40 years and it’s always a treat. I live in California and spent many childhood years vacationing in the U.P. of Michigan.
I had this pizza during a recent visit and it brought back many good memories. The pizza is an acquired taste, but it’s very good.
Please visit them when in Iron River and try one of their many pies — you will not be sorry.

A very good pizza indeed. My wife and I were lucky enough to land in Iron River one night and upon the recommendation of my cuz, we went to Riverside. We ended up ordering a #5 and were extremely please with the flavor and temperature. They had a good variety of beers, lots of Packer, and NASCAR memorabilia, friendly and attentive staff. This pizza just bumped one of my favorites out of the top 5.

Everybody’s got their own favorite «this is the best pizza on the planet» pick. This one is mine. What’s different about my pick compared to most others is that mine isn’t in New York City, or Chicago, or Milan. No, it’s in Iron River, Michigan, which is an ever-​shrinking former iron ore mining town in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan whose heyday was probably in the World War II era. But the last of the mines closed down a generation ago, and Iron River isn’t exactly «on the way» to any more prominent destinations. Ergo, it’s unlikely that most people would ever find themselves in striking distance of this fine pizza.
About this Riverside Pizza:
1) It’s a cracker crust deal. Very very thin and crispy, which offers great texture in a way that doesn’t get in the way of the flavor of the toppings and sauce.
2) The sauce is excellent! It’s really zesty and offers up a strong tomato flavor.
3) The pizza is cut into tiny little squares. They’re about an inch and a half to two inches. This is something of a double edged sword in terms of your eating strategy. You don’t have to commit to a whole big slice the way you do with a regular pie slice. However, for the very same reason, you can usually stuff at least three or four more pieces down your pie-​hole even after your belly declares that you are stuffed.
4) Toppings here are simple. There’s sausage and mushrooms and and onions and pepperoncini style pickled peppers. Most people eat some combination of those three items. You can also get a pepperoni if you must (although the sausage is the thing – and those peppers – trust me). I’m a #8 man myself.
I visit Iron River about once a year and naturally make sure I stop in once or twice. The other 364 days a year I dream about this pizza.

Omg… save yourself the wait.. buy Jack’s Pizza in Walmart. …2 hours in restaurant and still waiting for our pizzas. … unreal

Not particularly friendly service, but the pizza was pretty good. Two others in my group ordered the fish. They described it as edible. This is probably a good place to go if you are a local, but if you are an out-​of-​towner just expect above average pizza and a boring atmosphere.

Best pizza in the UP!!! I always easy to much but will go back again two days later for more.

Best pizza in the world. Period. All my friends and family from out of town have to get Riverside when they visit Iron River. The ones that can’t make the visit want it shipped to them frozen. You can’t really do that but it says something about the quality of this hometown favorite. I’ve eaten a lot of pizza in my day, but nothing ever comes close to Riverside.

Pizza is slightly different than what it was 30 years ago but still is tasty. The crust is not as crispy as it was. The sauce is not as thick.

Riverside Pizza is more than just delicious pizza, it’s one of my greatest summer traditions.
My father grew up in Iron River, right up the road from Riverside, and has been eating this pizza since he was a kid. We now live in Houston but Iron River is always where my family gathers together in the summer. Some of my best memories of our trip to Iron River was going to Riverside Pizza and picking songs on the jukebox and playing the Timber game while waiting for our pizza to be ready. I’ve been eating Riverside pizza since I was able to chew solid food and it has always been my favorite. We typically stay in Iron River for about a week every summer and it is not uncommon for us to get at least one pizza from Riverside every single night of our trip. In fact, I have nightmares a few times every year that my family goes to Iron River and on the last day I realize I haven’t had Riverside pizza even once. Yes, the pizza is that good! It is often times hard getting a large enough table down at Riverside to accommodate all of my family but never fear, the pizza tastes just as good sitting outside on a U.P. summer evening as it does eating it down at Riverside.
I can never understand the not so good reviews on this place. True, it is often tricky to get a table, especially for a large group of people. That’s because people don’t just come to Riverside for the pizza. This place has always been a place where families and friends get together to catch up. In fact, my sister and I have made it a new tradition where we head down to Riverside before the rest of the family to see how long it takes us to get a large enough table together for everyone before calling them to come up and meet us.
I’m not sure if it’s the cheese, the sausage, or the sauce but something about the combination of the three truly makes this pizza stand out. I also love how the toppings are put under the cheese rather than on top. I tell everybody back home in Houston about how there isn’t a single pizza place that holds a candle to Riverside. It’s one of those things you have to try to believe.

«No man is an island» but sometimes it feels like you’re on one in Michigan’s U.P. Regardless, somehow most every town has a pizza joint, and many of them are passable. Now, I’m no stranger to the occasional shameful purchase of a $ 5 hot-​n-​sweaty, but I know a good pizza from a bad one, and much of it has to do with the ambiance of the joint.
From the moment I walked into the Riverside, I was looking for a wall to smash my forehead against. Football memorablia from the mid 80s, a sad looking dart board, and other unfortunate looking décor were scattered about the joint. I think I even recall a skill claw stuffed animal machine. Great. My shoes stuck to the tile floor and the bar smelled like bleach/​urine/​stale cigarette smoke. I’m not that snooty though, and I had heard good things about the pie, so I figured I’d stick around.
We sat in the back and the waitress came around. She seemed kind of taken aback that two people might want coffee after 6 p.m. but obliged us and flipped on the old drip-​o-​matic. I can’t remember, but I think the coffee was served in styrofoam cups. Huzzah!
When ordering time came, we got half supreme, half deluxe as my special lady is a vegetarian and I am not. She requested a side of sauce to dunk her ‘za in, and the waitress told us that «they don’t do that here.» ORLY? Because you can’t just ladle some of your saucy sauce into another one of the styrofoam cups, or because you JUST DON’T DO IT. Either way, I thought it was kind of silly, but then again, not much makes sense in the U.P. sometimes. I’ve hit my head before, I occasionally say things that don’t make sense or needlessly infuriate others, I can let it go.
The pizza was hot, it burned my mouth and I really couldn’t taste much. It was probably a little better than a Jack’s frozen pizza, except when I make those at home I CAN ALSO BUY ALL THE EXTRA SAUCE I WANT.
Your only other option in this town seems to be McDonalds, and they don’t serve pizza. They do have WiFi though.

The family has a cabin outside of Iron River. Been coming to Riverside Bar for pizza every time we’re up in the UP… That being said, although the pizza is decent, I’ve had better. The sweet sauce is fantastic and I love the thin crust. But I personally prefer a thicker pizza with more cheese.

If you getting pizza get it with sausage it’s the best part.

I haven’t gone to the place… and I promise that I’ll do an update when I do. My boyfriend’s family ordered it and brought it home. Delicious thin crust. The pepperoni pizza was fantastic. I like the pizza where the pepp is hidden underneath all the cheese so it looks only like cheese pizza but then you’re surprised when you bite into some pepperoni. Awesome. I can’t wait to visit.

Compared to other pizza I’ve had this was OK, not great, but good. Compared to what I thought I would get going to some random bar in a small town in the UP I gotta say this pizza was fantastic. Thin crust, chewy (a bit too tough) generous amounts of cheese and toppings with good sauce. We ordered the sausage-​mushroom-​onion, the mushrooms were canned which is usually disgusting but somehow it worked out fine on this pizza. If you are passing through and need a pizza fix this is the place. We ended up coming back again a couple days later and had the same good experience.
Both times I was greeted immediately and with a smile.

I absolutely love this place. My family is from the area and I’ve probably eaten Riverside Pizza 200 times in my life, and I’ll never get sick of it. I remember my aunt forcing me to eat olives as a little kid (I thought they looked like eye balls. Not cool.) and playing Soundgarden on the Jukebox. No frills here, and that’s the way I like it. Simple, tasty pies with a unique sauce and cut into triscuit sized squares.

As a local from Iron County who like so many yoopers has moved away, I always make a point to stop back there when visiting home. The thin crispy crust pizza is cut into bite size pieces. The crust is almost always perfect; my favorite pieces are the edges! In later years the cooks sometimes screw it up, but its rare. The sauce is a sweet tomato paste base. Sausage, onion and mushroom is the best.
Forget deep dish, forget floppy New York style, their pizza is wholly original.

Came here when we were vacationing in a cabin on the UP. We came on a Monday night and place was mobbed with locals, which is how you know it’s good. The pizza is incredible. Servers were good too. Ahhhh, how I crave you, tiny little bite size pizza pieces!
Oh yeah people smoke in here, so watch out, those of you who have been spoiled by «no smoking in bars and restaurants» laws! In the future I might avoid the smoke with carryout.