When you think pizza, Colorado isn’t usually the first place that comes to mind. But with more than 10 pizza spots to choose from, local restaurateurs have brought pies from famous pizza spots like Chicago and New Jersey to Breckenridge.

With Breckenridge pizza places that keep things traditional and put their own spin on the classic dish, there’s something for everyone.

Breckenridge Ale House & Pizza

520 S. Main St., 970-771-3637, BreckenridgeAleHouse.com

Breckenridge Ale House & Pizza is a must-try for anyone in need of a classic New Jersey pizza fix. Originally from New Jersey, owner Rob Corujo came to Summit County for a ski season in the 1990s and then returned full time to open the joint in June 2020. Corujo still owns a restaurant back in New Jersey and has brought the traditional, sauce-on-top-of-the-cheese style to town. A purist, pizza is the only food item Corujo serves at Breckenridge Ale House & Pizza.

“The way our whole menu is set up is the only thing we serve here is pizza, and that’s it,” Corujo said. “Nothing else. One style, one pizza, and then we list out toppings, and you just choose a topping.”

A unique topping served up at Breckenridge Ale House & Pizza is its pepperoni — a cup-and-char style that’s smaller than typical pepperoni. If you’re really looking for a specialty factor, the restaurant sells a 24-inch “super slice,” a 2-foot long slice of pizza that comes with a take-home pizza cutter and breadsticks.

Corujo said the main things he hears customers say about his pizza is that they like the crispy texture of the crust and the flavor of the dough.

Downstairs at Eric’s

111 S. Main St., 970-453-1401, DownstairsAtErics.com

Downstairs at Eric’s serves up what owner Eric Mamula calls a Colorado-style pizza, which is a crust somewhere between a Midwest thick crust and a West Coast thin crust.

“It’s sort of our own version of pizza, and it’s really changed over the years,” said Mamula, who opened the restaurant in 1989. “We see ourselves as a local place that’s friendly to the visitors, too.”

Mamula listed the arugula prosciutto, hot wing and olive oil pizzas as some of the staff favorites. The hot wing pizza uses hot wing sauce as the base, and the olive oil pizza uses olive oil as the base along with tomatoes, basil and mushrooms as toppings.

Chefs at Downstairs at Eric’s come up with the restaurant’s most unique creations when making pizzas for themselves, and some of those recipes then catch on as menu items, Mamula said. That includes Eric’s Oaxacan pizza, which has a black bean base that is topped with jalapenos, roasted red peppers, shredded cabbage and a choice of meat.

Specialty pizzas are listed on the menu, but Eric’s also gives customers the option to choose their own pizza toppings.

Mamula said it’s nice to be operating a pizza place in a town where he feels he isn’t alone in making quality pizza. He is confident recommending other pizza places to customers who come in when his restaurant is full.

“There’s a lot of really good pizza in Breck, and I really do like all the other places, as well,” Mamula said. “It’s nice to be in a town where everybody does a really good job with it, and they’re all a little bit different.”

Windy City Pizza and Pub

400 N. Park Ave. No. 15A, 970-453-5570, WindyCityPizza.co

Windy City Pizza and Pub is another longtime Breckenridge fixture. The pizza spot opened in Breckenridge in the 1990s, and a second location opened in Silverthorne in June 2020. As the name suggests, Windy City serves up various forms of Chicago-style pizza.

Owner Mike Whitaker said the restaurant serves what most people associate Chicago pizza with: deep dish with cheese on top of the dough, then toppings and sauce to top it off. Windy City also serves Chicago-style thin crust pizza, which the restaurant will cut into traditional squares upon request.

“People do order the deep dish just because it’s unique to Summit County. There’s not too many other places that have it,” Whitaker said. “But we do a variety of different combinations. We have a whole list of specialty pizzas, one being our Groomer, which is a barbecue base, and we make our barbecue in-house.”

Windy City’s menu lists several specialty pizzas named after popular ski town phrases, such as the No Fall Zone pizza, which has ham, pepperoni, pineapple and jalapenos; and the Spring Slush pizza, which is made with Buffalo sauce, mozzarella, chicken, ham and banana peppers.

All of Windy City’s sauces are made in-house, and the restaurant makes its dough daily. Whitaker added that a popular feature of the restaurant is its happy hour slices.

Other noteworthy pizza places to check out are Giampietro Pasta & Pizzeria, Luigi’s Sports Bar & Pizzeria and Fatty’s Pizzeria. Giampietro’s is an Italian restaurant that serves New York-style pizza, Sicilian deep dish pizza and calzones. Luigi’s serves up New York-style pizza, while Fatty’s, which is located in a former 19th-century boardinghouse, serves up build-your-own traditional or thin crust pizza along with 12 specialty pizzas.

This story previously published in the summer edition of Explore Breckenridge & Summit County magazine.