A New Pizza Experience

So there's take-out pizza, delivery pizza, frozen pizza from the supermarket, and in Oakland Mills you can even get drive-though pizza. Or you can go to upscale restaurants and get exotic pizza. And those are your choices.

Well, until now. A new place has opened up in Ellicott City that does pizza in a whole new way: Papa Murphy's. Here's the deal. They make your pizza the way you want it, from all fresh ingredients, and you take it home and put it in your oven for about twelve minutes. I must admit, when I first heard about it, I thought, "huh?"

But I was curious, so Wednesday I went over to the new location on Route 40. It's across from the old Enchanted Forest site, in the new shops that were built next to the Double T Diner.

The owner/manager guided me through picking out what I wanted, and while we chatted about the new business, his assistant put my order together. I decided to have some fun and order pizzas for each member of my family, personalized as to their preferences. I went with their smallest size, which is a Medium. For about the same price I pay to have a large pizza and a Greek salad delivered to my house, I got three Papa Murphy's pizzas.

In almost no time at all, I was ready to go, with instructions on how to bake the pizzas at home. Each pizza comes beautifully wrapped, instructions included, with a special single-use pan for baking. The young woman who made the pizzas was friendly, efficient, and helpful.

And that's it. In very little time at all I had dinner taken care of.

As to the proof of the pizza...well, first of all, they are extremely easy to bake. And, better than that, they really are delicious. A big thumbs up from everybody for: cheese, pepperoni and mushroom, and all-veggie. And we had plenty left over and it reheats well, too. We had a great conversation about all the reasons people would want to buy Papa Murphy's pizza as opposed to the traditional pizza options.

We came up with quite a few.

I started out thinking that this would be a great pizza option for people who live or work nearby, or have family activities in the vicinity. But once I visited this location, and ate their pizza, I started thinking about ways I could be coordinating visits to other places nearby with a trip to Papa Murphy's! My husband loves shopping at Music & Arts, for instance. How about stopping in to pick up pizza on the way home?

Oh, and they have salads.

There are plenty of places to get pizza in Howard County. But I have never experienced this level of customer service in any pizza place. Truthfully, I get the feeling that most pizza-place employees don't really care if I live or die. From the moment I entered the door at Papa Murphy's I felt welcomed and valued. It's amazing how great customer service makes the entire experience more fun.

Papa Murphy's is having a Grand Opening Weekend with special activities and promotional pricing. It starts today.

Something you should know: this Ellicott City location of Papa Murphy's is owned by the McConaghy family, and Mrs. McConaghy is a friend of mine from Talbott Springs Elementary School days. So that is why I went to try them out, with an eye to writing about the experience. But her husband and assistant had no idea who I was and I didn't tell them what I was up to until after my visit was complete.

When a business treats you that well just for walking through the door, well, you want to go back. And I will.