Louie’s Pizza

Great hot sandwiches and good pizza! Pesto pizza with tomatoes was delicious! I lived in Paonia for a minute and was happy to have this reliable little pizza shop around. Nice staff too

Owner is rude, will be going to Hotchkiss for pizza or making it at home from now on. Terrible attitude.

Great local joint! The border to border pizza was well worth it. They have good micros on tap.

Roy ‘The Hungry Englishman’
So let’s make one thing clear, Paonia is a tiny little town, totally wonderful of course but in this small town the choice is extremely limited, that said some of the places we have tried thus far have really surprised us in a very pleasant way.
So now to ‘Louie’s Pizza’ and my somewhat lack luster two stars. The place and staff are all fine and what you would expect of a nice small town local place, nothing pretentious about this place but that’s the way I like it. The pizza was okay and there in lies the problem! The pizza was somewhat undercooked and very bland indeed.
Let’s be honest this is pizza ‘not’ rocket science! The secret to a really cracking pizza is the dough. Some of the great pizzas I have tried I just wanted to munch on the crust alone, ‘yes’ it really can be that good. Of course the sauce is just as important and once you have the crust and sauce down really the toppings are just extra. It seems all too often pizza restaurants rely too heavily on the toppings alone to give the pizza a good flavor this is a incorrect assumption. Let me be honest I really am no chef but I’m sure that a few minuets searching on line for an authentic flavorful recipe and some effort in the kitchen and I could probably produce a passable pizza, so why do professional restaurants so often missing the mark? I will say it again «it’s not rocket science»!!!
Now back to Louie’s, I really have no intention to beat up on this local joint, if you are desperate for a pizza and don’t have high expectations then by all means give them a try. Would I go back? Well if I was desperate yes of course I wold, but then again if I was in the middle of the Sahara desert and desperate I would drink from a pool of putride camel urine.
I really want to see Louie’s up their game a little, better dough, better source, more seasoning and more time in the oven. They may be the only pizza place in town but if Laurel leaves had thorns perhaps people wouldn’t sit on them!
Happy eating, Roy