Hot Tomato Cafe

Sure they have GF, but it doesn't do any good since the smallest size is a14"!!!  Not many people have someone in their group to share a 14" with.  Would it kill them to offer an 8" or 10"???   Or offer it by the slice??  Everyone else in my group ordered a slice or mini-Stromboli that is offered  pre-made.  So once again, I felt ostracized being at a pizza place and not being able to order a pizza.  With the 500 or so people that came through in the 2 hours we were there, they certainly could have offered the GF pizza by the slice (like they offer for wheat crust!).  I had been dying to try their pizza for years, and was so disappointed that they advertised GF so heavily, but aren't truly committed to it.  I bet so many people go in there hoping to get the GF pizza, and end up with a salad.  They said to just take the leftovers home, but we were on the road and had nowhere to keep the leftovers. Which is true of so many people passing through Fruita. BTW, the Asian salad was not so good. Not really Asian at all. More like a garden salad with some sweetened up generic Italian like dressing. No hint at soy sauce or coconut or peanuts at all. Overall, super disappointing.

Peanut Allergy Alert!  They offer a thai style pizza with a peanut sauce.  Proceed with caution!  However, they were VERY accommodating in offering to clean work surfaces and take other safety precautions.  We eventually worked out that ordering slices would be safe for B. since they used different ovens for warming and had not made a by-the-slice thai pizza.  He did not have a reaction, so we were able to enjoy lunch in comfort.

And lunch was amazing!  The crust popped right up into my top three favorites (sorry, Apiezza.)  The pizza was a little on the greasy side, but oh so good.  The slices were huge, one was enough for a meal, and we split a third slice of cheese because we were greedy.  B. got a slice of the cheese (basic perfection doesn't need any additions, he say) and I got the Granny Pesto because I have a weakness for pesto and it looked SO good.  And it was.  

The place was dinerish, order and then seat yourself.  They had a porch if you wanted to dine outside, and then even more seating behind the building in a garden-like setting.  The bathrooms can be reached by going outside on the porch.  There was some sort of weird suction thing going on with the doors.  The front door kept opening on its own and then shutting whenever somebody opened the porch door!  

The place was recommended to us by Cherry up at the National Monument visitor's center, and was easy to get to from there.  It's about 4 hours from home, so I'm not sure we can get back anytime soon, but I will be dreaming about that crust!

They offer dairy and meat free on all their pizzas (whole pies, not slices).  We split a slice of the pesto one- awesome! We also got the Thai pizza (sans chicken). They said it was made with peanut sauce- could've used more peanuts and spice. Decent flavor but not as spicy as I would expect a Thai pizza to be. The crust was great! Full New Belgium line up. Lots of patio seating!