Field Guide
After the Aquarium, Save Room for C-Street
One parking spot, two stops on Commercial Street, and a chocolate-shop closing time worth knowing.
Before you leave Wonders of Wildlife, look up. In the limestone cave exhibit, the blind cave fish draw your eyes to the water. Overhead is a sinkhole. From the surface, you’d see a dip in the ground. Here you get to stand underneath it. Aquarium exhibit guide
By the time you step outside, one of you wants lunch and the other wants to see a little more of Springfield. Head for Commercial Street. There’s a thin-crust pizza waiting to be rolled and a chocolate factory just up the block.
The teenager who kept the pizza coming
At Pizza House, the kitchen still rolls its crust thin by hand. Friends Dee Smith and Pat Clay opened the original shop at Glenstone and Bennett in 1958. Fifty years later, as manager Stacey Schneider was planning the anniversary celebration, an eviction notice arrived. Pizza House history
Schneider had started there at fifteen. Smith was ready to let the place go, but Schneider took it over and found a home on Commercial Street. If you’d eaten at the old shop on its last day, you could have sat down for a pie at the new one just twenty days later. Schneider’s account of the move
A bar for the ride home
Leave the car where it is and walk east to Askinosie Chocolate. When you’re picking a bar to split, look for Davao on the wrapper. That’s where Shawn Askinosie met cocoa grower Peter Cruz in the Philippines in 2008. Back in Springfield, the factory uses Davao beans in both a 77% dark bar and a dark milk bar with sea salt. If you’ve ever wondered how much difference the recipe makes, take home one of each. The story behind the Davao bars
Save for Saturday · Aquarium → Pizza House → Askinosie
| Stop | What to know |
|---|---|
| Wonders of Wildlife | Great Oceans Hall entrance, 500 W. Sunshine. Allow 3–4 hours for the museum and aquarium. Visitor guide |
| Drive to Pizza House | About 12 min · 3.8 mi to 312 E. Commercial. Park once. Drive · Parking |
| Walk to Askinosie | About 4 min · 0.2 mi to 514 E. Commercial. Allow another 4 min back to Pizza House. Walk |
Afternoon allowance: About 2 hours for the C-Street outing, including lunch. Arriving late? Buy chocolate first. Askinosie closes at 4 p.m. Saturday and Pizza House serves until 9 p.m. Shop hours · Restaurant hours