A Taste of Boulder: Beau Jo's

It’s time for another entry in A Taste of Boulder. Today’s featured restaurant is a pizza establishment called Beau Jo’s. I’ve been meaning to do an entry on this place for a while, but it wasn’t until recently that I got the photos I wanted to showcase for it.

As said earlier, Beau Jo’s specialty is pizza, though not just any type of pizza. What Beau Jo’s is best known for are “mountain pies” which are slightly smaller but very dense pizzas. Mountain pies look much like a regular pizza, though with a large, thick crust. See the photo below for an idea of what I’m talking about.

You can order a specialty pizza, or create your own. All the various cheeses, sauces and toppings that you would expect are available. There’s even a substantial gluten-free section of the menu. You can also order a pasta or sandwich, but that’s not the reason you go to Beau Jo’s. Your drinks are served in glass jars manufactured by Ball, a Colorado firm that also builds satellites. One more nice touch, and one of my favorite things about Beau Jo’s, is the honey you are given with the pizza. This may seem like an odd thing, but the purpose of the honey is that you put it on the crust of the pizza, so you get something akin to bread and honey when you get to that part of the pizza. It is of course completely optional, but I think you’re missing out if you don’t take advantage of it.

Ed (left) and Shawn (right) ponder the possibilities.

The last time I was there with my friends Ed and Shawn, we ordered one of their specialty pizzas that was called the Motherlode, and I can only describe as meat, on top of meat, on top of meat, on top of meat. I remember it had pepperonis, sausage, ham, salami, and meatballs. Needless to say, it was delicious (but if you are vegetarian or vegan I imagine you would find it horrific).

Digging in. You can see the complementary honey in the bottom center of the photo.

I cannot stress enough how filling these pizzas are. Their appearance is deceptive and you might think that you should have ordered a larger size when they bring your pizza out. Beware, these are not the sort of pizzas you get from the likes of Dominos or Papa John’s where a young male can easily devour a medium size pizza in a single sitting. Beau Jo’s pizzas are not the biggest, but are very filling. The pizza shown in the photos above that my friends and I ate was packed with toppings and it was a team effort by all of us to consume the whole thing. For those of you who scoff at our small stomachs, you can always prove your manhood by taking “the challenge”, which is an actual menu option. If you choose to do so, you will be served a 14 pound pizza and given one hour to eat it (you are allowed a partner to help, which is recommended). Successfully consuming the whole thing within one hour means the pizza is free and you get recognition for beating the challenge. Failure results in you having to pay for the pizza, which I believe costs about $80.

Congratulations, you completed “the challenge” of reading this blog post. More will go up in the coming months as I can get proper photos.