Colorado-Style Pizza Is All About the Crust — With Dessert Baked In

Unlike pizza itself, there are no arguments among historians about the origins of “Colorado-style” pizza. With a crust as craggy and massive as its Rocky Mountains and a honey finish as sweet as a John Denver song, Colorado’s “mountain pies” are indisputably the invention of one man: Chip Bair. And for more than 50 years, locals and tourists have lined up at Beau Jo’s for topping-heavy pizzas sold by the pound with a “built-in-dessert” from drizzling local honey over the ample bones of crust left behind.

Born in Brooklyn, where going out for pizza was “a treat,” Bair’s family moved to northern Minnesota — at the time a pieless desert. “I remember when they first got pizza ... my parents were so happy.”

Bair followed a sister out to Colorado and fell in love with the state. Hopping on a Greyhound bus, he arrived in Denver and then moved to the historic mining town of Idaho Springs, scraping up $7,500 to buy a 15-seat pizza shack from Beau and Joanne Foulk, who were moving to a commune in Oregon. 

Bair upgraded the ingredients, using fresh vegetables and adding whole wheat flour and honey in the hearty crust, which he describes as a “topping containment system.” And the ingredients are plentiful — an extra-large pie weighs in at a whopping five pounds. 

The sweet inspiration for honey-drizzled crusts came from Bair’s then-girlfriend CeeCee, who worked at the restaurant. The original Beau Jo’s soon gave way to a larger space (it now seats 650) in a historic building on Idaho Springs’ Miner Street, and further expansions followed the flagship. Today, Beau Jo’s Colorado-style pies can also be found in Steamboat Springs, Fort Collins, Evergreen, and Lone Tree, and a newly opened outpost just brought the mountain pies back to Denver. 

Beau Jo’s, true to its healthy and hippie Colorado roots, was one of the first places in the country to rely on whole wheat flour for crusts and began offering a dairy-free pie in the early 1980s. A gluten-free crust option appeared in the 1990s. Vegan offerings (including plant-based cheese, sausage, and pepperoni) abound. There’s also a thinner “prairie-style” pie that omits the heavy hand-rolled crust of the Beau Jo’s original.

Bair trademarked the term “Colorado-style pizza” 20 years ago, a move that’s hampered the development of the regional style. But you can’t stop honey from spreading — a plastic bear of sweet stuff is a familiar sight on tables at pizzerias around the state and has been reported as far afield as San Diego and Alaska.

More Colorado pizza

Trademark notwithstanding, diners can enjoy a “pizza in the style of Colorado” at non-Beau Jo’s locations, but it does take some searching. In Boulder, legendary college hangout “The Sink” serves its signature “Ugly Crust Pizza” with plenty of honey for squeezing on the crust. The former Sigma Nu fraternity house celebrated its 100th anniversary last year, and fans include Robert Redford (who worked as The Sink’s janitor while attending the University of Colorado) and 44th President of the United States Barack Obama, who dropped by in 2012 for a pizza with pepperoni, Italian sausage, green peppers, red onion, black olives, and mozzarella that’s now christened “The POTUS.”

At 10,158 feet, the tiny mountain town of Leadville is the highest city in North America. High Mountain Pies has been slinging pizzas with big, bodacious crusts for 20 years — no mean feat at this altitude. Try the San Luis, a local favorite, featuring a garlic oil base, mozzarella, braised pork in ranchera sauce, green chilies, cotija cheese, fresh avocado, and cilantro, or the Crocodile, with mozzarella, shrimp, jalapeño, bacon, and cream cheese on a barbecue base.

After a day of soaking or skiing, Rocky Mountain Pizza Co. in downtown Glenwood Springs satisfies with generously crusted pizza (yes, there’s honey) including the Speedo, with a garlic oil base and plenty of mortadella and burrata cheese, topped with roasted pistachios.