Papa Bear
Colorado Pizza Kitchen
Locally Owned & Operated
Organic, Non-GMO & Imported Ingredients
243 Washington St.
Monument / Colorado
PIZZA
719 418 2070
A BETTER PIZZA
Colorado is a state of wonderment and beauty. A place where the people have a fierce independent streak and a true appreciation and love for natures gifts.
The Colorado Pizza is a homage to the spirit of Colorado. It represents all that is good with traditional pizza making without any of the nonsense that is associated with the fast food movement.
Only wholesome natural ingredients, old school cooking methods and made from scratch foods go into a Papa Bear Colorado Pizza!
WAY
MORE
FLAVOR
More flavor is more fun! How do we get more flavor into our pizza? ...We put it in there one delectable ingredient at a time. By utilizing only the freshest ingredients we can find, combined with a geeky attention to detail and a child like enthusiasm for something yummy we hand craft each and every pizza we make.
So committed are we to a better tasting pizza we cook everything from scratch. Out meatballs are hand rolled, our pot roast and roast beef is slow braised in our ovens, and all our meats are cut in house. We pick our herbs fresh from a hydroponic garden and select only the best of artisan cheeses.
THE
FOUNDATION
Since dough is the foundation for a truly delicious pizza we start with old world techniques to create signature dough unique to our kitchen. To develop a base that actually has a complex flavor profile we use a method of dough making that uses a poolish. This live yeast culture is a sourdough sample taken straight from the famed 100+ year old Alaskan Klondike batch. We combine this with imported extra fine "00" Caputo flour, Hungarian high altitude whole wheat flour, water, imported extra-virgin olive oil and a whole lotta love!
Since a Colorado pizza is unique to our imagination our dough represents a hybrid variation that is thicker than NY style but chewier than a traditional thicker Chicago or Detroit style crust. To attain this dough nirvana we create a perfect high protein dough that has enough cellular structure to support our abundant toppings as well as the elastic chewiness that when combined with the crisp of a hot oven makes a pizza bite perfect.
THE
SECRET
SAUCE
Often seen as an afterthought, pizza sauce is probably the most commonly flawed item on most pizzas. Not here at Papa Bear! We are absolutely crazy about the creation of a fresh, flavorful sauce that complements our pizza or can stand alone by itself!
How nerdy are we about our sauce?....Well first we start with only the finest and most fresh plum tomatoes we can find. From Michelin star chefs to my cousin Vinny’s grand ma, everyone knows fresh tomatoes are the very best tomatoes for any red sauce!
We only cold prep our sauce. Why? Because over cooking tomatoes creates a rusty red sauce that is bitter and foul tasting. Our ovens bake at over 600 degrees, so there is no need to cook our sauce beforehand to only have it burn in the oven. We combine our freshly picked roma tomatoes with fresh organic basil, roasted elephant garlic and extra virgin olive oil. A pinch of sea salt and a splash of our geeky exuberance and you have a brilliant red sauce full of complex flavors that only gets better when added to artisan dough and ooey gooey cheese.
EVERYTHING
GOES WITH
PIZZA
With a platform of rustic bread and delicious cheese it is no wonder almost everything tastes amazing upon it. Along with the typical American topping selection we also like to start throwing whatever we can onto a pizza and see what comes of it. It is this wonderment and experimentation that brought Papa Bear our best selling Chili Frito Pie along with favorites like the philly cheese steak, chicken pot pie and pot roast and potato pizza.
Most of our Franken-Pizzas are limited time and number as we often get inspired by whatever is in season or looks good at the market that day. If the Northern Colorado lamb farm we get our stock from has a slaughter then Sheppard Pie Pizza winds up on the menu for a short time.
Since so much of our menu changes as per what the market has in season we encourage all out customers to be adventurous and try something new and a little crazy, you just may find a new favorite!