Diamond Pi offers plenty of pork pizza and meal options

     Four years ago, Eric Green took over ownership of Diamond Pi, formerly Happy Joe's.

   In that time, Green has made some big changes to the pizza restaurant, particularly concerning his meat and pork products.

   "All of our meat is different," he said.

   Green uses a different brand of pepperoni. They brown and cook their sausage versus use frozen sausage on pizzas. They dice the Canadian bacon themselves versus buying pre-diced.

   "It's not as good," commented Green of using Canadian bacon that is already cut up into small pieces.

   He said he wasn't a fan of the flavor of the pre-diced option "so I went with something we liked. It's more work, but it's worth it."

   Green explained the Canadian bacon he uses tastes much like ham, has a better flavor, and contains less water than if he would buy it pre-diced.

   The bacon bits are also cooked and cut up in-house as opposed to using bacon bits.

   Diamond Pi's most popular pork pizza topping is Canadian bacon.

   "Kids like it," Green said as opposed to other toppings.

   The popular pork pizza selections include all meat, which comes with sausage, Canadian bacon, and bacon bits; Canadian kraut; Hawaiian; and BLT, which is served not just with bacon bits, but Canadian bacon as well.

   "Our BLT pizza is tied with our Canadian bacon," Green said of another favorite, "because it has better toppings versus what was offered before."

   Aside from pizza toppings, Diamond Pi also makes a few other pork options: tenderloins, meat balls, and sausage links and bacon served on their Sunday brunch buffet.

   "Our meat balls are 50/50 pork and beef," noted Green.

   Diamond Pi gets its pork loins from Fareway. They are cut to size, marinated, breaded, and fried for each order.

   "It's actually pretty simple," remarked Green of the process.

   Green started working for Happy Joe's continuously back in 2011 after college. He worked there on and off throughout high school and college, since his freshman year of high school.

   While the pandemic certainly took a toll on the restaurant industry, Diamond Pi did see their dine-in business return, but not to the level it once was.

   "We haven't seen all of our dine-in business come back from the pandemic," he said. "But it keeps improving."

   However, his carry-out service remains busy.

   The exception to the dine-in numbers is the Sunday brunch crowd and Monday evenings. Green said with some restaurants closed on Monday nights, his has increased due to lack of options. In fact, his Monday nights have remained steady since the Fourth of July (which was on a Monday this year), when Diamond Pi opened for business following the parade.

   While staffing remains an issue, much like everywhere else, Green said he's learned how to run a lean schedule staff-wise.

   Diamond Pi is located at 601 S. Main St. in Monticello.