Sauce Pizza Review

There’s a Sauce Pizza location about 5 minutes from my house in Scottsdale, but I had never been there until recently. Here’s my take on this extremely popular pizza restaurant.

pizza-from-sauce-pizza

When you enter Sauce for the first time you’ll be amazed at how large the interior is… it looks small from the outside. Sauce is a pizza restaurant where you place your order at the counter, and then find an available table. This certainly reduces the cost as tipping is not expected. This is similar to restaurants like Pei Wei and Five Guys.

Our pizza arrived a few minutes later: We ordered the combination style pizza, which had sausage and pepperoni.

We also ordered a salad, which was also very good. One other thing they sell are meatballs, and we ordered a few of them to try. They were very good.

meatballs

The food compares favorably to other pizza nearby, but we still like the pizza over at Fired Pie the best. Simply for it’s customizable nature.

Sauce is a fast-casual pizza restaurant founded by Fox Restaurant Concepts, and recently sold to the owner of Ra Sushi. That means that it’s a local company running the operation and that it will likely have strong standards and consistency.

There are nine locations of Sauce Pizza around the valley and in Tucson. You can get a full list of locations on their web site at saucepizzaandwine.com.

Fired Pie

Are you looking for a local place to get pizza? Of course you are! We were down in Chandler the other day and stumbled upon Fired Pie. They let you build your own pizza just how you’d like it, and choose your own toppings.

If you’re a Seinfeld fan, you’ll immediately recall that this idea is exactly what was envisioned by Cosmo Kramer. His idea was a place where you go to make your own pizza. It sounded like a cool idea, but George and Jerry thought it was a terrible idea. In the same episode, Kramer goes into business with a local pizza place, and… I won’t spoil it for you.

pizza-fired-pie-arizona-options

The only significant difference between Kramer’s idea, and Fired Pie, is that you won’t need to swing any dough around, and you don’t have to bake it yourself — they do all of that for you.

All you need to do is choose your cheese, and they have seven to choose from — Mozzarella, Provolone, Parmesan, Feta, Gorgonzola, Fontina, or Fresh Mozzarella.

Now, here’s where it gets interesting: You can put as many toppings on as you want.

So, naturally, my pizza ended up having Pepperoni, BBQ Chicken, Canadian Bacon, Steak, and Sausage. Yeah, I was hungry, and couldn’t resist.

If you want, you can add other meats, like anchovies, meatballs, capicola, salami, and grilled or buffalo chicken. Lots of delicious88 options.

Next, you pick your veggies: I went with grilled onions and grilled mushrooms, and added pineapple, garlic, black olives, and tomatoes. You can add fresh herbs, like basil and cilantro as well. Oh, I almost forgot — I added artichoke to mine as well.

pizza-fired-pie-chandler-az

My second pizza was a little bit more on your traditional side, with Pepperoni and Canadian Bacon. Onions, Tomatoes, and Spinach finished it off, with a healthy dosing of mozzarella cheese.

mudshark-brewery

After paying, you can pick any seat in the store and start drinking your fresh lemonade or beer.

An 11″ custom pie costs $7.95 and beverages are around $1.75 to $5 depending on what you order.

My pizza was perfectly done, and the crust was crunchy and thin, just like I prefer. I really appreciate the fact that they have mushrooms and onions already grilled, ready to add to the top of your pizza.

lemonade

The owners of Fired Pie all worked together 20+ years ago at California Pizza Kitchen. They later connected, and decided to start a pizza place. Now, they have five locations across the valley, including two in Scottsdale, two in Phoenix, and the one we tried, in Chandler. What’s crazy, is they’ve only been open for one year!

salad-fired-pie

We also tried one of the salads — delicious!

fired-pie

It’s fun to see Cosmo Kramer’s idea come to life!

Getting there

Visit their web site at firedpie.com for locations and directions.

PHOENIX
(deer valley towne center)

CHANDLER
(raintree ranch)

SCOTTSDALE
(scottsdale rd & greenway-hayden loop)

PHOENIX
(park central)

NORTH SCOTTSDALE
(northsight & raintree)