Milwaukee-based Palermo’s Pizza company is an American Dream story. In 1964 the Fallucca family, Italian immigrants, opened a bakery called Palermo Villa. Eventually the establishment expanded to a restaurant which has evolved into what it is today – a booming frozen pizza business.
Milwaukee’s only pizza factory tour. A trip to Palermo’s Pizza is fun for all ages. Visitors learn about the company’s history, see pizzas being made and discover other fun facts.
Can you guess what day is the most popular for eating frozen pizza? I’ll give you a hint – it’s the day before a major holiday.
Reservations are needed for Monday through Thursday tours – 10:00 AM to 1:30PM. Public tours are held on Fridays at 1:30PM.
The tour. The one-hour tour starts and ends in Palermo’s Pizzeria & Café and passes through the cozy Palermo’s lobby where visitors are pointed to the saying over the reception desk “Saluti Dalla Famiglia” (Welcome to the Family).
Plan to have a few pennies for the children to make a wish in the water fountain. Next, guests are led to a viewing room to watch an interesting 20-minute video of the company’s history.
After the movie, the short walking tour of the plant begins. The factory floor is observed from above and through glass windows (no photos allowed). As you can see below, my children had no problem watching the action for themselves.
Fresh to frozen. Observing the pizzas efficiently being made was impressive but what surprised me most was how fresh the ingredients are.
For example, we witnessed pepperoni and mozzarella being sliced and placed directly on the pizza – only moments before being frozen. Now that’s fresh!
Tour choices. There are two tour packages. Package A consists of a facility tour and a slice of Palermo’s Fresh Pan Style Pizza in the Pizzeria & Café and a magnetic Palermo’s Kitchen Ruler/Pizza Pull.
Package B includes the tour, slice of pizza and Palermo’s T-shirt. Children under the age of 5 are free (T-shirt not included). Guests must pre-pay cash or credit card.
A slice of heaven. At the end of the tour comes the best part – pizza! After being surrounded by the aroma of baking bread, being led to the Palermo’s Pizzeria & Café is a delight.
The freshly baked pan-style pizza – not frozen – is melt-in-you-mouth delicious. The restaurant is also open to the public.
Bring it home. You can purchase frozen pizzas in the Pizzeria.
Palermo’s Pizza tour was a great way to kick off our trip to Milwaukee and I’d recommend this excursion to anyone regardless of age.
It’s a fun, inexpensive and interesting learning experience. I have a new appreciation for frozen pizza and Palermo’s Pizza. When you go – you will, too.
Thank you for hosting our tour, Palermo’s. We enjoyed the family-friendly experience!
Pin for later!
My son had pizza for, um, 6 different lunch/dinner meals over the course of 3 days (his birthday long weekend). I think he would like this tour. 🙂
I’m from the east coast and this is so unique compared to anything that is around here! Although we are close to the ‘famous’ Mystic Pizza, but i really enjoy the fact that this place is more of a process and experience rather than just a sit-down restaurant with pictures on the wall and movies playing. It has a nice family & homestyle feel to it and how can you go wrong with pizza 🙂 I think the next best thing would be an ice-cream tour factory, if Palermo’s teamed up with an Ice-cream Factory i think they would be unstoppable to no return!
Your article is a great prove of my words. We spoke with a young friend today that persons are interested in similar tours: tastings, the process of production of different things like wine, oil, local plates etc. My friend did not want to believe me. :-))) When you will come here, to us, in Campania or there, in Messina (it’s Sicily) we will take you in such great places! There is not much job here and many families try to organize similar tastings and shops here. 🙂
It’s nice to see a post about more local travel- we don’t all have big budgets to travel with no thought to limiting our expenses!. I’m from Minneapolis and have never been to Milwaukee even though it’s right next door! I hope to go there soon. The tour actually seems very affordable and interesting. Thanks for sharing!
I have been a major pizza lover my whole life. Could eat it for every meal if I had to.
I definitely want to check this tour out one day! Thank you so much for posting this!
We love Palermo pizza! We always get the Margherita box at Costco (sometimes they don’t carry it and we’re very sad!) Great post- if I ever find myself in Milwaukee I will stop there
I used to live in Milwaukee, and once a month my roommate and I would do the Palermo’s tour and the Sprecher beer/soda tour. Palermo’s rocks. My other fave Wisconsin pizza is Rocky Rococo’s, but they don’t have a factory tour – just majorly yummy pizza joints.
meka nam marama athal kiyala wadak na yakooo