Lit Pizza? No, It's Blaze
- Janie Phan
- Jan 4, 2018
- 3 min read
Review: Blaze Pizza
Location: 10 Dundas East, Toronto, ON M5B 2G9
Price: $11.95 Build Your Own + $2.35 House Drink
Website: Blaze Pizza
Quick Background:
Blaze Pizza is a California based fast-dining restaurant established in 2011. It competes with traditional fast food pizza restaurants like Pizza Pizza and Pizza Hut. Blaze Pizza is modeled after the popular food chain, Chipotle, in that it has a similar made-to-order approach when it comes to serving customers. Blaze Pizza has also made news due to one of its high profile investors, LeBron James.
At Blaze Pizza, the restaurant believes in quick service and exceptional quality. Most notably, the dough is made from scratch and the pizzas are made right in front of your face in, basically, an assembly line formation. Their pizzas are “fast-fire’d” which really means they use a blazing hot oven (temperatures reach up to 900F) to cook these thin crust pizzas in approximately 180 seconds.
Review:
Blaze Pizza is located in the heart of Yonge and Dundas Square. At first glance, the restaurant looks like a more hip version of your traditional pizzeria. The store has a vibrant atmosphere that feels like a great hangout spot. Of all the times I’ve been here, customer service was top notch and employees were extremely interactive with customers. Not only that, but every employee genuinely looked like they enjoyed working there – almost exactly like what you see on TV ads.
The menu consists of the chain’s signature dishes, salads, drinks, desserts and an option to build your own pizza. I opted to build my own pizza. Similar to what you would see at Chipotle or Subway, there is a display of different ingredients to choose from. If you build your own, you can choose from what type of dough you want (from gluten-free to high-rise – prices may vary) to your choice of sauces to the kinds of toppings (cheese, meats, veggies) and even what “finishes” (garnishes or drizzles) you prefer. By building your own, you have the creative freedom to get anything you want and as many as you want (their website even offers a nutrition calculator!). Once your done customizing your pizza, it is thrown into a blazing hot oven to cook.
The pizza is absolutely delicious; the crust isn’t too thick so dip isn’t necessary (but is available upon request!). I personally thought the portions were going to be small for a personal sized pizza, but I was wrong. Take out boxes are available on the shelves to the side of order and pickup, alongside additional spices, herbs, and hot sauces you can add. A lot of the packaging that the chain uses is recyclable, compostable or made from reclaimed materials.
In addition to your usual bottled drinks, like water, milk, chocolate milk, lemonade, soda and etc., Blaze Pizza offers signature drinks ‘Agua Fresca’ that are made in-house using real fruit and without high-fructose corn syrup. These drinks are refreshing and thirst quenching and are worth trying out as they strangely, compliment with the pizzas.
Verdict: Give this pizza a spin, especially if your sick and tired of the usual, traditional chains like Pizza Pizza or Pizza Hut. It has a unique twist on fast-casual pizza and a variety of different toppings to choose from. You can also order your pizza online and pick it up in store, that’s a bonus if you want to skip the long lines!
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