Ordering a pizza is undoubtedly ideal for comfort meals, especially on nights when cooking just isn’t on the table. However, with many delivery pizza options full of low-quality ingredients meant for distributing many pies at a time, the quality of your Saturday night slice could lead to Sunday regret. Farow, the hyperlocal farm-to-table favorite, recognized this problem and entered the delivery pizza market with their new concept operating out of Farow’s kitchen — Pie Dog Pizza.
Lisa Balcom, pastry chef and owner, opened Farow roughly a year and a half ago with her husband, Patrick. Farow took home in a location that had previously operated as a pizza place, gifting the Balcoms with a large, beautiful brick oven. Since Farow had already become largely famous for its housemade bread dough, the couple decided to take some of that great dough and make it into pizza, putting that beautiful oven to good use.
Pie Dog Pizza began operation only a few months ago with a virtual-kitchen concept, meaning these pizzas are only available via pick-up, DoorDash or Uber Eats. Like Farow, Pie Dog Pizza is committed to making food with the highest quality ingredients possible.
“All of our flour comes from Moxie, so it’s all fresh-milled, local and organic,” explained Lisa Balcom. “We do a three-day fermentation process on our dough so that it can develop the flavor really well. This also kind of helps it get a little more digestible.”
Beyond the dough, Pie Dog imports mozzarella cheese from Italy, which they grate in-house. While skipping out on pre-shredded cheese, customers can also skip out on added potato starch or preservatives. Plus, the freshly ground mozzarella melts beautifully on each pie.
“Our pepperoni is also imported, and that’s freshly sliced in-house. So again, no fillers, no preservatives, no anything,” Balcom said. “And then, Patrick always pre-roasts all of our vegetables before he puts them on the pizza so that it removes a little bit of water content. This helps keep everything from getting soggy and makes it even more delicious.”
Pie Dog Pizza cements its goal of producing cleaner food for people’s plates with every pie on its menu. Balcom explained the importance of supporting the local food chain as much as possible, especially by increasing high-quality flour and grain in the market. Many of these values are also present in the goals of the Colorado Grain Chain, a non-profit membership association of locally owned and operated businesses that produce grain and grain products made from heritage, ancient and locally adapted grain.
“I know Moxie is extremely active with the Grain Chain organization, so they’re really concerned with increasing soil health across the plains, bringing back early varietals of wheat and making sure that we’re using better farming practices. So I think with us utilizing those ingredients, we kind of help support that process, as well,” said Balcom.
Pie Dog currently offers customers four delicious options made with local wheat and grain products on its website. Pie options include cheese pizza, pepperoni pizza, a veggie pizza with mushrooms, onion, peppers and black olives and a sausage pizza with peppers and onions.
While these delicious bites are only available for pick-up or delivery, Balcom explained an exciting new addition in the coming weeks. Pie Dog Pizza will soon offer pies during its happy hour in Farow’s dining area.
Pie Dog Pizza is located at 7916 Niwot Rd. It is open Tuesday through Thursday from 4 to 8 p.m. and Friday through Saturday from 4 to 9 p.m.
All photography courtesy of Pie Dog Pizza.