What Is Indiana-Style Pizza?

If you grew up in Indiana, none of this needs explaining. Square pieces just made sense and nobody thought to question it. If you didn't grow up here, welcome. Here's what you've been missing.

Why Is the Pizza Cut Into Squares?

Because squares are for sharing.

A round pizza cut into triangles is eight decisions. A party-cut pizza is a pile of small squares in the middle of the table, and everybody just keeps reaching in. Little kids get pieces sized for little hands. Big eaters take six, light eaters take two, and nobody has to do slice math or defend their territory.

Then there's the great Indiana debate: corner pieces or middle pieces? Corners give you two crispy edges. Middles are pure toppings, no border at all. Every Hoosier family has strong opinions on both sides, and every Hoosier family is right.

That's why we call it the party cut. This is pizza built for a table full of people — the team after the game, the birthday party, the whole extended family. It was never meant to be eaten alone in a car. Although we won't judge.

Good to the Very Edge

Here's the real signature of Indiana-style pizza: the toppings go all the way to the edge. No bare crust rim. No pizza "handles." Nothing to leave behind on the plate.

At Pizza King, we take it a step further — our ingredients are chopped fine and scattered across the entire pizza, so every square carries every topping. You never pull a piece that's all crust or draw the one sad square with a single pepperoni on it. First bite to last bite, corner piece or middle piece, it all tastes like the whole pizza.

Yes, Nacho Cheese. It's an Indiana Thing.

Ask any Hoosier who's ordered breadsticks out of state. The waitress brings marinara. Just marinara. And somewhere in that moment of confusion and loss, a Hoosier realizes for the first time: warm nacho cheese with your breadsticks is not a universal human right. It's an Indiana thing.

Out-of-state servers have been known to identify Hoosier travelers on the spot by one question: "Can we get a side of nacho cheese with that?"

Nobody can tell you exactly when Indiana started dunking breadsticks in warm cheese. There's no plaque, no founding date, no origin story. It's just always been on the table — at pizza places all over Indiana, for generations.

Here's how it works at Pizza King: five made-from-scratch breadsticks, hand rolled and cut in-house, brushed with dill butter, served with warm nacho cheese for dipping. Dip your breadsticks. Dip your pizza squares. This is how it's done.

We didn't invent the rule. We just follow it faithfully: don't forget the nacho cheese. Might as well add an extra.

An Indiana Original Since 1958

The Pizza King story starts in Lafayette in 1956, when the Swartz brothers opened their first pizza restaurant and worked out the recipe Hoosiers today grew up on: thin crust, tomato paste sauce, finely chopped meats, square cut. Within a couple of years the brothers went their separate ways and split the state between them.

Bob Swartz took the eastern half and built his Pizza King family from Muncie starting in 1958 — the chain with the yellow crown, the dill butter breadsticks, the Feast pizzas, and the telephone booth at your table where you could pick up the receiver and "Ring the King" to place your order. That's our family. And like any family, every Pizza King has its own personality. One store is famous for its owner's special recipe, another for its game room, another for the regulars who've held down the same table every Friday since the doors opened. The pizza is the constant. For nearly seventy years, generations of Hoosiers have grown up on it: same crust, same sauce, same squares their parents and grandparents ate.

Every Town Had One

Pizza King isn't the only branch on the Indiana pizza family tree, either. Ask anyone who grew up in this state about their hometown pizza place. Every town had one. It's where the team went after the game. Where your extended family came to celebrate your birthday. Where a lazy summer afternoon turned into dinner. Where square slices just made sense and nobody thought to question it.

That's what "It's an Indiana Thing" means. A place where you can share a pizza, tell a story, and be treated right. Where the pizza is good to the very edge and the folks behind the counter are glad you came in. That's the Indiana thing. That's Hoosier hospitality.

The Indiana Thing, in Carmel

Pizza King has been Carmel's hometown pizza since 1991. We're part of the legendary Muncie-based Pizza King family, an Indiana tradition dating back to 1958. We make pizza the Indiana way: thin crust, chopped toppings spread edge to edge, and party-cut into squares for sharing. No bare crusts here.

Grab a Royal Feast, a couple orders of breadsticks, and enough nacho cheese for the table. If you grew up on it, you already know. If you didn't — you're about to.

Pull up a chair. We're glad you came in.