your pie - (athens, ga: beechwood)

After being tortured picture after picture of Antico's Pizza which is now supposedly the best pizza in Atlanta, I had to get pizza out of my mind. It had gotten so bad that I was having dreams about those circular, delights. Fresh green basil, oozing fresh mozarella cheese and thin crispy crust all teasing me to no end with their delightful, euphoric aromas. I trekked on over to Your Pie at Beechwood Plaza with "Sandberg" who may seem like a lazy, Homer Simpson-like slacker at appearance but is quite the brainiac and a damn good friend at that. (Because of the rain, my SLR stayed home and the pocket Olympus rode along, sorry about the pictures)

(fuzzy picture sorry!)

To ensure a fail-free meal, I did my research before coming to Your Pie. I had asked several people in my class where the best pizza in Athens was - and word of mouth friends is the best locator of good food. Although there were mixed opinions between Your Pie,Transmet and Amici's, the majority of responses steered me to this pizza joint.

Your Pie offers a unique and simplistic approach to pizza for its customers. You pick your pizza dough white, wheat or gluten-free, sauce, cheese and ingredients. A lot of the positive reviews came from their wheat dough which is a key selling point for all the healthy-food seeking college kids. I kept it original with the white dough and the basic Margherita. My mate got the BBQ Chicken on wheat. The pizza was cooked in a wood stone oven which was at 650 degrees F allowing for a quick cook time and a crispy crust without drying out the dough.

The pizza? It was pretty good but not amazing. The wood stone oven gave the pizza a really nice, crispy crust but the marinara sauce and dismal amount of basil left more to be desired. The marinara sauce was bland and as you can see from the picture, it looks like the pizza is garnished with basil instead of featuring it as an ingredient. The marinara flaw was quickly fixed with Tabasco sauce and was overlooked. The BBQ pizza was good but could've used more chicken. The wheat dough is hardly noticable so feel free to choose that instead of the white.

Overall, a solid pizza joint in a college town serving up some "questionable" pies at a budget price. The negative feedbacks I heard before coming here were that the pizzas were too small for the price (which range from $5 to $9 for a 10" pie). Because of the thin crust, you may get hungry again after a couple of hours but I feel that the price is justified and the portions are just right. They have another location at 5 Points and I've heard a 3rd location is in the works. Antico's will have to wait but today, I left Your Pie pretty happily, with my pizza cravings sedated...for now.

Tips: Feel free to order the wheat over the white dough. You can't really taste the difference with respect to the crust. They offer a variety of beers both domestic and imported. They also have gelatos and paninis.