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Over at Slate, economics blogger Matt Yglesias has been looking at how "fast-casual" restaurants like Chipotle and Panera Bread have been fast taking territory from sit-down places like Olive Garden as well as fast food places like McDonalds. And what's the next big thing in fast-casual? Pizza.
The pizza parlor is largely a thing of the past, and national chains have denigrated what might be America's favorite food to a disk of cardboard with heartburn sauce topped with "cheese."
For all the talk of the good old days, this has never been a pizza town. Recently, in the Santa Clarita Foodies group on Facebook, someone put the question out there: Best pizza in SCV? But the hive mind came up short.
The local pizza game is about to be upended by three small and well-regarded chains coming to town.
MOD Pizza: Seattle chain. Selling "fast pizza". Described as a "Chipotle of Pizza" on the spot and cooked in 800° ovens. Pizzas are small and thin. Neoclassical. Looks like the pies I make at home.
According to their Facebook page, they'll be opening in November. They'll be in former Barcelona space in the Stevenson Ranch Valencia Marketplace.
And thanks to ultra-informed commenter SO_CAL_RETAIL_SLUT, we have news of San Diego's Project Pie, which follows a similar model, coming later this year as well. There isn't much of an Google footprint yet, but a foursquare location suggests that it will be somewhere near the mall. (Update: The Food Court)
Then sometime next year, Toppers Pizza, a popular chain from Ventura County is going into the former Bob's/Cocco's/King Chef spot of Valencia & Magic Mountain and in Canyon Country, near the Soledad/Sierra intersection.
From a distance, it looks pretty pedestrian with the conveyor-belt ovens and what not. But their combinations are interesting and people seem to really like it.
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