Review: Pizza Mill and Sub Factory - Alamogordo, NM

If you traveled to New Mexico, what kind of food would you seek? For my tastes, New Mexican fare tops both California and Tex-Mex in its approach to Mexican-inspired cuisine. Santa Fe is an epicure's delight as much as any town or city in America. But when you're trying to eat a covid-safe meal in southern New Mexico, takeout pizza or BBQ is an easy choice. 

Cracker crust pizza in Alamogordo

During our trip to Carlsbad and Alamogordo, we found that the BBQ pales in comparison to Texas, especially when ranked against stellar offerings like Cooper's in Llano or Opie's in Spicewood. What about the pizza?

Pizza Mill and Sub Factory

Given the proliferation of excellent Neapolitan pizza makers crafting personal-sized pies in 900-1000 degree wood fired dome ovens, I'm pretty confident that it would be easy to find great pizza in Santa Fe and Albuquerque. But much of New Mexico is sparsely populated.

Our mushroom and sausage pizza

Alamogordo is a city in the Chihuahuan Desert with 30,000 residents in southern New Mexico, supporting an Air Force base and tourism mostly related to the surreal and spectacular White Sands National Park. 

White Sands National Park

Online reviewers were pretty much unanimous that the best pizza in Alamogordo comes from Pizza Mill and Sub Factory. I had modest expectations, because there are so many storefront joints in New Jersey and Pennsylvania that churn out generic pizzas and hoagies (subs) that are just OK. All other things being equal, I prefer a place that really focuses on the pizza. 

Cross section showing thin crust

Another reason for caution was that the menu includes a "Garbage Barge" pizza topped with Canadian bacon, pepperoni, Italian sausage, hamburger, mushrooms, onions, black olives, green olives, bell peppers, and green chilies. In my experience, an "everything" pizza or any other pie with an overload of toppings is simply a technique to distract you from a lousy crust or mediocre generic ingredients. We opted for a more balanced pizza topped with mushrooms and Italian sausage.

A party-cut slice

There is a convenient (especially for this covid era) drive-up window to pick up your order, and there you can observe the staff preparing the pies. After a short drive to our lodging, I opened up the pizza box and found a delightful surprise - the pizza was sporting the midwestern "party cut" with small squares instead of the traditional triangle shaped slices. 

Pale underneath

During visits to the actual Midwest, I have enjoyed some solid bar-style thin crust pies at legendary pizza joints like Vito & Nick's in Chicago, Lucca Grill in Bloomington IL, Rubino's in Columbus OH, and the regional chain Monical's. After some digging, I learned that the founders had been making pizzas in Michigan before opening this Alamogordo pizzeria in 1972.

Photo from Facebook.com/PizzaMill

Most of these razor-thin pies mentioned here had a bready crust, but this pizza had a true cracker-type crust. Very thin with a crackly crunch, yet somehow still had some al dente chewiness to it. Baked on a metal tray, it was pretty pale on the bottom with just a few golden spots.

Mini square party cut

I can appreciate all kinds of crusts, from the thick and spongey cheese-encrusted corner slices of a Detroit slice at Via 313 in Austin, to a buttery rich grainy deep-dish Chicago style slice at Louisa's in Crestwood IL, to a medium thick classic slice at Toss in Bee Cave TX, to a thin and rigid tomato pie at DeLorenzo's in Robbinsville NJ, to any of countless soft and puffy Neapolitans at places like Cane Rosso in Dallas and Austin TX. 

Visible edge seam. From Facebook.com/PizzaMill

There's room in my heart and my stomach for a cracker crust, too. It was ideal for this party cut pie. Each perfectly round pie is crafted with fresh dough made daily, sent through an automatic roller, and then cut into perfect circles using the pans themselves as a template.

This thin and crisp wafer was topped with a generous amount of standard mozzarella, but the cheese and sauce did not make the crust soggy or saggy anywhere. The mushrooms were likely canned variety, but they had good color, size, and flavor. 

From Facebook.com/PizzaMill

The sausage chunks were small but surprisingly spicy. The tomato sauce was a solid role player to bring all the elements together. This was a well balanced and tasty pizza.

White Sands National Park

Pizza Mill and Sub factory is not breaking any new ground, but it's well above the average chain or mom-n-pop shop. It was a welcome surprise to find a reasonably authentic midwestern party cut thin crust pie in the remote reaches of New Mexico. Kudos that they've kept a high quality for 48 years in this location.