Friday Night Pizza Night

On Friday nights growing up, we always had pizza. I looked forward to it all week, especially because we didn’t eat out often unless it was someone’s birthday. Friday nights were such a treat.

My mom would pick my brother and I up from after school program most Fridays and we’d stop in town at this pizza shop and pick up pizza and a cheesesteak for my older brother. I remember exactly what it looked like inside and can still see where they cooked the steaks and can picture the seating. Then, after we were older we started getting pizza from a new spot that my dad would pick up on his way home from work. Again, I remember the crunch of the fries and that you had to dig in right when he got home before they got soggy. And the first bite of the california cheesesteak we’d split on occasion along with our pizza.

Many Friday nights, a trip to the bookstore would follow pizza dinner. We’d go to the Borders bookstore which eventually transitioned to a trip to Barnes and Noble after Borders closed. Other Friday nights, we’d find a movie to watch while eating our pizza at home. As I got older, I’d have friends over and my dad would pick up food for them too (they started to have a standing order because they were always over on Fridays).

If you can’t tell, I loved Friday nights. It wasn’t anything big or extravagant, but I looked forward to this all week.

I don’t know exactly when we started, but sometime in 2021, Teddy and I started our own Friday night pizza nights. I told him how much I looked forward to it as a kid and so we continued the rhythm as adults. Sometimes we make a frozen pizza, sometimes we order pizza out, on occasion we will do a make your own pizza night, but almost every Friday night we have pizza. Even the weekends when we go to the beach we try to pick up a Dough Roller pizza on our way into town. And when we go camping, we try to find a local pizza spot to order from after we set up the camper and get situated.

Simply – Friday night is pizza night for the Fishers.

This rhythm had made meal planning easier. It’s also give us something to look forward to every week. We just know that Friday nights are pizza nights. Sometimes we may watch a movie, other times we may go for a walk or sit by a campfire or have a game night. But the evenings follow a similar weekly rhythm.

What could something like this look like for your family? Could it be a taco Tuesday? Maybe pancakes on Saturday morning? Or a pot roast on Sundays? Maybe it’s leftover Thursdays or breakfast for dinner Wednesdays. There’s so many options. Try to think of something your family enjoys that you could incorporate in way that doesn’t add much work. The rhythm should ideally be something flexible (like us doing different types of pizza each week) while still being simple (the decision on it being pizza is already made). It keeps it easy and uncomplicated.

Once you decide what will work for you and your family, put it on the calendar for each week. Tell the family it’s something new you all plan to do if it’s not already incorporated into your weekly meals. And then try it out. Make some tweaks as needed like adjusting the food option or the day of the week you do it depending on schedules and logistics. And then enjoy!

If you have weekly meal rhythms you’ve found to be helpful, please share them in the comments!