The Cowtown Story

I wouldn't dream of serving your family fresh-made marinara sauce. Sure I start fresh, but like a fine wine, my marinara is aged to bloom into its robust perfection. Tomatoes love sunshine. That's why I only use those happy tomatoes from the lush San Joaquin valley in Northern California. I then blend a full pound of herbs and spices into my rich and tangy pizza sauce. When you use that much it doesn't even begin to blossom until 12 hours later. At this point my marinara is very good. And I am breathlessly eager to enjoy some. But I wait. After a full 36 hours the flavor of the sauce explodes as each leaf and root and seed of every one of those herbs has relinquished its full essence. Because I want your eyes to roll up with delight at the first mouthwatering taste, I wait the full 36 hours to serve you the richest and most flavorful pizza sauce you've ever experienced. I suppose it would be cheaper to just use sugar and tomato paste like so many of the others. But you and I would both know the difference.

Put on your lab coat, because if sauce is an artist's work, then dough is for the scientist. The ingredients may be simple but the process requires precision. That's why I measure each component to the 1/1000th of a pound. I meticulously blend high-protein wheat flour, raw cane sugar, sea salt, and fresh yeast with water at exactly 95°, which I carefully filter to remove 99.97% of impurities. After a 45-second mix to ensure it is absorbed I add freshly pressed virgin olive oil. Unlike others, I never cut corners here by using hydrogenated oils or even lard. That's not what I'd serve my family, would you? I then mix for 9 minutes and 45 seconds until the dough is satiny smooth. I portion each dough ball and allow it to rise, or proof, on a pan brushed with that same virgin olive oil. 24 hours later it has reached perfection and is infused with that fantastic olive oil flavor.

Is all this work a pain in the neck? Absolutely. But our customers absolutely “rave” about our crust – so I don't want to let them down.

Is it the best pizza crust in town? I think so. But I know this much for sure – it tastes better than that frozen “chain store” crust with the cardboard taste.

Now you might think we would use a traditional stone hearth oven to bake these masterpieces. But you'd be wrong. You see, Mother Nature is great at making beautiful things, like stones. But rarely are beautiful things uniform. Granite is made up of many minerals and each of those minerals conducts heat differently. With stone ovens you end up with hot spots and cold spots. Have you ever had a pizza where one part of the crust is crunchy and almost black while other parts are still soggy? That's a stone oven. Technology has made tremendous advancements over the years and we have spared no expense keeping up with it. Our ovens use both flame and air flow to evenly and consistently bake our pizzas to perfection every time. And the computer-controlled conveyor ensures that the timing is right. With stone ovens it's common to accidentally overcook pies; you get busy, you can't pull them out the second they are done. Then the workers are faced with that difficult decision of whether or not to serve one they know isn't right. They're told to keep food costs down. So what do they do? At Cowtown Pizza we have invested in quality to ensure that your experience is wonderful, each and every time.

Pizza is from Italy. What does that have to do with France? A graduate chef from an elite Culinary Institute in Paris France created each and every item on our menu. Not only did he create them but he helped choose each ingredient to ensure we get the highest quality. He also taught us how to prepare those ingredients for maximum flavor. They say a thousand monkeys banging on typewriters for a thousand years would eventually produce a masterpiece. I suppose that would be true too of a thousand monkeys randomly throwing toppings on pizzas for a thousand years. But we don't have that long! Our chef's visionary creations offer intense flavors in combinations that will make your eyes roll up with delight at the first taste. My mouth is watering just thinking about it. Vive le pizza!

It's an island, it's a volcano, it's a rolled-up-pizza-sandwich-like contraption! What is Stromboli? One of the world's most active volcanoes sits on an island just off the Northern coast of Sicily in the Tyrrhenian Sea. The island and the volcano are both named Stromboli. And believe it or not there are crazy people who live in a town named Stromboli nestled up against that constantly erupting volcano. How this came to be the name of a delicious rolled-up-pizza-sandwich-like contraption in central Pennsylvania I haven't the foggiest idea. Is it because it is mounds of delicious Italian food bursting with robust marinara? Could be. But I do know it's a sensational treat that I'm happy to share with you.

There are many different cheeses pizzerias can buy. They vary in quality and price from the barely edible you find in buffets to very fine smoked provolones used by the better shops.

Then there is Grande®.

Making fine cheese, like making fine wine, is indeed an art… steeped in tradition and pride. Grande® was founded with this philosophy as its very heart and soul. And Grande® makes the best cheese money can buy, hands down.

Yes, it costs more. A lot more. But if you agree with me that it's worth an extra forty cents per pizza to have the absolute best, we'll get along just fine.