Review: Grotto Pizza, Dewey Beach DE

Grotto Pizza is a regional small chain, with 16 locations in tiny Delaware, 3 in Pennsylvania, and 2 in Maryland. It's pretty much unknown outside the area, but it's the pizza of choice for many residents of the First State.  On a recent visit to lovely Dewey Beach, I had my first chance to try it.

A 12" pie from Grotto

In general, I avoid chain pizza.  Most of it is made with inferior mass-sourced ingredients, both to allow a low price and to appeal to the palates of children and ravenous drunks.  

Click on any pic for full size image

Having said that, some chains execute at a very high level, especially the smaller ones like Bertucci's, Anthony's Coal-Fired Pizza, Jules Thin Crust, and Monical's.  Even California Pizza Kitchen is pretty good. Click on any of those for a full review.  

With that in mind, I was open to Grotto pie, given the love it gets from locals.

We didn't try the Gelato

We were on the beach on a beautiful sunny day, and this Grotto location (Route 1 at Read Street) was just a one block walk.  I chose a 12" pie with pepperoni, and to my surprise it took 15 minutes to get it. This tells me that they made the pie fresh when ordered - none of this pre-cooked or pre-assembled slop. I forget the exact price, but it came to over $15 for this small pie; I presume this was "beach pricing."

The strength of this pie was its crust, which was sturdy, with both good crunch and chewiness, and a nice interior hole structure.  All that, despite having been baked on a screen.  The sauce and cheese were suitably bland (but salty), and applied in about an ideal proportion.  The pepperoni was surprisingly spicy.

Damn good crust!

Cooked on a screen, but still well-executed

This pizza passes our "does it beat DiGiorno" pizza test. It's not destination pizza, but it beats 90% of the mom-n-pop stuff, and it is miles ahead of Domino's, Papa John's, and Pizza Hut. 

Pizza at the beach?  No complaints here

The crust gets a 7, the sauce a 6, the cheese and pepperoni 5. Overall, 6.5 pizza. Chain pizza can be just fine, but mostly when it is a regional, smaller one. Still wise to avoid the giant national chains.