By Shari Benyousky
Guest Columnist

Column Note: This is the 51st column in the Diners and Dives series in which a small group of Warsaw Breakfast Optimist Club members and their guests road trip to explore the restaurants of Kosciusko and the surrounding area.

WARSAW — In the 90s when I moved back to Warsaw, I helped run an enormous, 20-family annual garage sale at my boss’ house. At the end of the first day, everyone handed over cash from their sales to buy pizza. I made the faux-pas of asking where the pizza was coming from. There wasn’t a discussion about place or what was on the pizza. All pizzas, for everyone, were Royal-Feasts from the Pizza King at 1039 E. Winona Ave. The restaurant with slanted windows. It was my first time eating a thin-crust pizza.

The Food

Fast forward 30 years. When the waiter Donnie stood in front of the same iconic windows and took our order last Friday, I asked him about the most popular item on the menu. He looked at me with the same look as my boss 30 years ago and said, “The Feast, of course!” A royal feast is a special blend of pepperoni, sausage, mushrooms, onions, green and red peppers chopped into tiny squares and spread evenly over a thin crust. A Meat-Feast substitutes ham and bacon for veggies.

1st Source Banker Paul Finley leaned over and told me about the off-menu item he ordered, the Meat-Feast wrap. REMAX Realtor Jeff Owens suggested another off-menu item, Pat’s-Feast, a version of the meat feast pizza created by former owner Patrick O’Connell who retired in 2021, after 50 years. Pat’s-Feast has BBQ sauce mixed in.

“I’m ordering the traditional stromboli,” Jeff announced. By traditional, he means back into the 70s when the old high school was located nearby, and Pizza King was packed out before and after football and basketball games. Attorney Tony Garza tried the deep-dish chicken ranch pizza. Paul ordered us two sets of garlic bread sticks too; they came shiny and glazed in pools of butter.

The Joe’s Kids Wildcards

Our wildcards looked across the table at each other — Michele Bickel, director of Joe’s Kids community relations, and Rebecca Bazzoni, Joe’s Kids Executive Director. Joe’s kids just had a spectacular month, winning at Dancing with the Stars with their representatives Trace Hansen and Karri Morgan, and officially opening an amazing new location out at 1692 W Lake St.

“The new building is a dream facility for the team,” Rebecca told us. “We have so much more space and potential.”

Joe’s Kids (Joe stands for Join Our Effort) provides physical, occupational, and speech therapies and tutoring services for special kids from Kosciusko plus 10 other counties. The nonprofit helps with many kinds of diagnoses from autism to dyslexia.

“We just keep growing and growing!” Rebecca ordered a gluten-free cauliflower crust pizza. I tried her pizza out of curiosity and found it quite tasty. It had a crunchy texture and didn’t taste like cauliflower at all.

The New Joe’s Kids Facility

We toured Joe’s Kids at their open house not long ago. The new building has multiple therapeutic spaces including a zipline ending in a ball pit, a trampoline, and a rock wall. “Do they offer therapy for older and more mature people too?” Jeff Owens asked. “I just used a trampoline with my grandson in Fort Wayne.”

“Older?” Asked Garza as he attempted to pull out a slice of chicken ranch pizza without cheesing his shirt. “AND more mature?”

“Well, maybe just older and not more mature people?” Jeff winked at Garza and turned back to Rebecca. “Do you serve adults like me?”

“Just kids,” Rebecca confirmed. “We already have 28 people on staff, and more being trained, including four speech therapists.”

“Did she look specifically at me when she said speech therapy?” Jeff wondered.

Rebecca got the hang of Diners and Dives quickly. “I DID look at you and I enunciated slower too!” she smiled. Banker Paul guffawed into his meat wrap.

Why Is Joe’s Kids A Nonprofit?

Michelle kept us on track describing how her job includes raising money for Joe’s Kids. “Our next fundraiser will be the annual golf scramble on June 18 at Stonehenge. Then in September, we have the annual tailgate event with the sports theme. We are just a lot of fun people.”

Joe’s Kids uses a medical therapy model, but they cannot exist with the monies from insurance premiums alone. 60% of their funding is from insurance but they need to raise 40% to succeed in their mission.

“What’s one of your favorite success stories?” REMAX Jeff asked.

“Getting to meet us, no doubt!” put in Banker Paul.

Rebecca may have rolled her eyes. But, if she did, it was a kind rolling of eyes because luckily for us Rebecca is very kind. Rebecca is the executive director and founder of Joe’s Kids. She still has her physical therapy license despite all the other things she now does.

“I remember a child coming to us around age 3 and they couldn’t walk,” she said. They had to scoot around on the floor to get around. We worked and worked with them. By the time they were 5, that child could walk!” She picked up another square of her pizza. “We see a lot of first steps and a lot of first words. It’s very rewarding work. There is no development area that we can’t address and help.”

Joe’s Kids partners with schools and takes referrals from teachers and doctors. They work with KCH too.

What Else Does Joe’s Kids Need?

“There’s just always a need,” Michelle told us as we finished up and scrambled for more napkins. Pizza and breadsticks need lots of napkins.

Garza and Paul had been eying a claw machine after watching a kid and her father pop quarters in it.

Michelle handed me a napkin. “Need never ends. More kids need help. Things break. The therapists find new methods. And equipment breaks too.”

“Is there something still on your dream list to have for the kids?” I asked, trying gamely to try at least one bite of every single item brought to the table and not get grease on my notebook.

Michele and Rebecca looked at each other. “I’d love to keep a spider cage!” Rebecca’s eyes lit up. They describe out the cage had belts and harnesses to vary the weight and resistance for children trying to walk or do another physical task.

“But it’s like $15-20K to buy one,” Michele told us. “Someday!”

The pinball machine music cycled back on, and we lost Finley and Garza to the claw machine. Finley did win something. Check out the pictures to see his big prize haul. Congrats Prominent Banker Paul.

Donnie rang us up at the cash register and we talked about the Pizza King Hall of Fame. Pizza King has a long history with Warsaw. Everyone seems to have a story, a favorite pizza, or a memory. Be sure to stop by and check out the slanted windows and say hi to Donnie the next time you feel nostalgic.

Do you know of an interesting place, restaurant, nonprofit, or person that you’d like to see featured in Diners and Dives, Whirlwind Wanderlust Travels, or Profiles Behind the Scenes? Send SB Communications LLC Shari Benyousky an email at [email protected].