Ever since 800 Degrees hit the scene, it seems like quickie custom pizza shops have shown up everywhere. Pieology is one of these places and it follows in the same assembly line style of others before it. The ingredients are essentially the same as Blaze Pizza, but with a few tweaks here and there in the sauce department.

Thus, I went with a twist on the buffalo chicken pizza (taking advantage of their buffalo sauce), topping mine with spicy chicken, basil, mozzarella and gorgozola cheese, bacon, and sausage because obviously chicken isn’t enough meat.

After a quick blazing in the oven, my pizza was ready for chowing. Like Blaze Pizza, Pieology’s pizza felt more commercialized in the sense that the crust was pretty perfect rounded (despite a weird deformity in the bottom right of the picture) and the toppings were evenly distributed. Unlike Blaze Pizza and 800 Degrees, this pizza was super crispy. I didn’t ask for it to be cooked well-done, but it sure seemed like it was. I couldn’t complain about it, but it was definitely a noticeable difference.

As for the toppings, they were really great. The spicy chicken was really truly spicy and the rest of the toppings (aside from the buffalo sauce) did their best to buffer against the heat. They failed, but tasted good in the process. Other than the spiciness and crust, I could find little to distinguish Pieology from its brethren.

But wait, there was a dessert pizza option. We ordered it to split as a group, but I found what seemed to be just bits of chocolate to be incredibly potent and overwhelming. Just know if you get the dessert pizza it’s for those with a strong sweet tooth as opposed to those who was just a little something sweet to close out a meal.

If Pieology is nearby and you’re craving custom pizza, you can’t go wrong. It’s really hard to make bad pizza and Pieology is a long way off from that. Nonetheless, it’s not exactly a spot I would seek out instead of another custom pizza spot.

Once upon a time, a little place called 800 Degrees decided it could redefine fast-food pizza. Needless to say, it was a success. And that success inevitably led to copycats like Blaze Pizza. Surely this is not a bad thing in general because it will ultimately lead to better or more affordable food, but in the short-run I set out to see if Blaze could deliver (figuratively, of course).

I chose make my own pie, which includes all the ingredients you want for a fixed rate of under $9. I opted for the spicy red sauce, mozzarella and ricotta, then pepperoni, Italian sausage and a touch of bacon. It was lacking some of the Italian specialty ingredients like soppressata that 800 Degrees has, but just about everything you could want on a pizza was there. After a few moments in the oven, it was ready for eating.

The crust was both thin and solid, not allowing itself to stay soggy in the middle like its competitor. The ingredients were as awesome as you would expect from making your own pizza. But specifically I could tell that the pepperonis and sausage weren’t the super cheap variety you’d find at Papa John’s.

Blaze Pizza may not be doing a lot to differentiate itself yet in terms of its offerings, but it is definitely a more sterile, cookie cutter type of place than 800 Degrees. For example, the dough is perfectly even and round, while the ingredients are almost perfectly spaced. You can call this quality control if you like it or a lack of individuality if you’re not a fan. Either way, the pizza is quite good and worthwhile.