Although the Homemade Pizza Co. has five other locations in the DC area, I’ll readily admit to never hearing of them or even noticing that I’ve walked by one. That was until they opened their latest shop in my neighborhood and a held three day long celebration featuring free pizza, salad and the owners grilling (yes, grilling) up their za and chatting the locals.

Unlike most pizza joints, Homemade Pizza Co. doesn’t serve you hot out of the oven pizza. Instead they sell bake-at-home pizzas made to order. Yes, that’s right, you’ll be ordering (either in the shop or order your pizza online for delivery or pick up) uncooked pizzas that you then have to (gasp!) cook yourself. The horror!

However, these unbaked pizzas are above and beyond the Whole Foods or Safeway premade pizzas. These pizzas are custom made on-the-spot with the dough is rolled out specifically to meet your needs. They use the freshest, highest quality all-natural ingredients like specialty meats, terrific cheeses, and local produce because we all know that our farmers have greatest fresh-from-the-farm products. Once home, the cooking is simple and every pizza is labelled with the uber simple 5 step instructions, where total cooking time takes about 10-15 minutes.

You might be wondering what the ultimate end products looks and tastes like. Are we talking Chicago style or deep dish, thick  or thin crust? After sampling various slices with numerous toppings, I’d classify this pizza and yes, even though it’s cooked at home, as brick oven style. While it does lack that special wood fired brick oven flavor, a medium pizza grows to about ten inches in diameter with a thin, soft yet crisp crust that plays beautifully with the delicate toppings. This is the type of pizza that you can eat a fair amount of without feeling disgustingly full afterwards. And

because of its wholesome and fresh ingredients, after consumption you may even feel healthy. If I had to compare the pizza to other area pizzas, I’d go with Two Amys or Pizza Paradaiso.

My only reservation about the Homemade Pizza Co. is the price. $15.95 for a medium and $17.95 for a large, which if I rationally think about the quality of the end product isn’t a bad bang for the buck. However, when I hear $16 bucks for a 12″ pizza, I feel-what I can only imagine it’s like-getting kicked in the nuts. To be fair my perspective on what pizza should cost is based on 1990s prices where $2 got your a large coke and a slice.

Given the company’s success in other DC neighborhoods with penchants for high quality, gourmet foods, I have a feeling this addition to the neighborhood will have a good amount of success.