Not Your Typical Pizza Joint

Ben Chambers, staff writer

Extreme Pizza is clean and family friendly while also offering a bar area with a dozen beers on tap and a patio for when the weather is warm. Located at the 5th Street Station shopping center, Extreme Pizza brings a little of the west coast mentality to Charlottesville with skateboards, skis, and snowboards displayed on the walls. There’s rock music for ambiance and TVs tuned into channels like Discovery and National Geographic, showing programs like Wipeout.

From the name on the outside of the building to the decorations on the wall, the music coming from the speakers and the variety of sports being shown on the TVs, one might expect to find local youth with wild hairstyles speaking their own language while doing back flips off tables. It’s possible, but pizza is a favorite food of young and old and all types of backgrounds. That fact brings a diverse crowd in searching for the culinary favorite, but they also have a variety of salad and sandwich options.  

The atmosphere is laid back and fun. The friendly staff keeps things casual and takes orders at the counter and then brings it out once it’s ready.    

Prices are a little on the high-end, but the quality of ingredients makes it worth it. There are also coupons you can find regularly that come in local mailers that help. A 12-inch medium Signature Gourmet pizza is $16.25. Our party of five had four mediums and finished three. We ordered Drag it Through the Garden (no broccoli, no cheddar,) Screaming Tomato, Railroad Grade, and Paia Pie; they were all excellent. The vegetables were crisp and the crust was crunchy but still somehow a little chewy. The sauce had a nice flavor profile, and there was a perfect amount of hot melted cheese.  

I would recommend Extreme Pizza for anyone who has a craving for delicious pizza that wants to try something different.