The family decided to go a different direction for Labor Day Weekend and skip the stereotypical grilling effort. Our search was for a superior frozen pizza, and I don’t mean your grocery store standards like Pizza Corner (a North Dakota late-night staple). Nope, we wanted to elevate the frozen pizza game and experiment with a few national favorites. 

My favorite pizza joint is Beau Jo’s in Idaho Springs, CO.  If you haven’t been there, you should book a trip… it’s worth the time and money. The alternative is to have them make you a pizza and overnight it on dry ice! Expensive, yes, but cheaper than a trip to Colorado.

So, the cards were stacked in Beau Jo’s favor, but we also ordered a few strong competitors. Lou Malnati’s is a well-known Chicago chain that also will ship pizzas nationally. Our third contender was new to me, but a few google searches suggested that John’s of Bleecker Street was a great New York pizza joint. All three options are available to be ordered from Goldbelly.com. 

There you have it—three VERY different pizza restaurants. 

Our pizza battle started with John’s of Bleecker Street. We ordered a straight pepperoni pizza from all three restaurants for competitive purposes. John’s of Bleecker Street was a typical New York pizza; with a relatively thin crust.   It exceeded all expectations and was a great start to our pizza battle.

Lou Malnati’s was second, and it was a traditional Chicago-style pizza with a thick crust and sauce on top. It had been a long time since I’d had Lou Malnati’s, but it did NOT disappoint.

Our final pizza of the day was Beau Jo’s, a pizza joint I first visited in the early 90s and most recently in 2021. The thick edge but thin crust is unique, and as in the restaurant, we served honey for the crust. 

Here is the challenge; these are three great options, and no pizza was similar to another. Each received some first-place votes from various people.

That said, Beau Jo’s came out on top by a single vote over Lou Malnati’s. You can’t go wrong with any of them. I think I’m permanently giving up the emergency Pizza Corner in the freezer and will keep one of these on hand.