Toppings is tapped out in LoDo, but two more pizza places coming

A string of pizza joints opened in LoDo last year, in a neighborhood that already included the Wazee Supper Club and Two-Fisted Mario's, with Mellow Mushroom and Marco's Coal-Fired Pizzeria just a few blocks outside of LoDo. Wazee Wood-Fired Pizza was the first to open -- and also the first...

By Westword Staff

May 16, 2013

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A string of pizza joints opened in LoDo last year, in a neighborhood that already included the Wazee Supper Club and Two-Fisted Mario's, with Mellow Mushroom and Marco's Coal-Fired Pizzeria just a few blocks outside of LoDo. Wazee Wood-Fired Pizza was the first to open -- and also the first to close, less than a year later, in August 2012, when Charlie Palmer also shuttered District Tavern. Now Toppings, a take-and-bake enterprise that opened in April 2012, has closed its doors.

Still going strong: Lucky Pie, which opened at the end of February 2012.

And more pizza joints are coming. A second Pizza Republica will open tomorrow in front of the Colorado Convention Center, right at the corner of 14th and Champa streets. (Watch for photos of the new spot on Cafe Society later today.)

And Live Basil Pizza will open next week at 6305 East Hampden Avenue. This is a new concept by Tom Ryan and Rick Schaden, the team behind the smash-hit chain Smashburger and Tom's Urban 24, and they're hoping that it's just the first of many Live Basil Pizza outlets they open. (They're planning to turn Tom's into a mini-chain, too.) Originally, they'd planned to call the new place "Honest Pizza," but they changed the name to emphasize the focus on organic, authentic ingredients, including -- you guessed it -- live basil. A version of this story originally appeared on Cafe Bites, our electronic newsletter on Denver's drinking and dining scene that's e-mailed every Wednesday afternoon. Find out how to subscribe to Cafe Bites here.

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