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Hops & Pie
Hops & Pie opened in September 2010 in Denver's Berkeley/Highland neighborhood, founded by Drew and Leah Watson after they'd developed the concept while living in San Diego and spending time around its craft beer scene. Their core idea was simple and, at the time, still fairly novel in Denver: a genuinely good pizza built specifically to pair with serious craft beer, rather than beer treated as an afterthought to the food. That pairing philosophy shows up in the numbers as much as the menu — 22 rotating taps of craft beer sit alongside a pizza program that draws on both Detroit and New York traditions, built on a sourdough crust that gives the pies a tang and chew distinct from a standard pizzeria dough. Both Watsons had worked in well-regarded restaurants around the country before opening Hops & Pie, and that broader food background shows in a menu that treats pizza with more creativity than a typical taproom kitchen usually attempts. The restaurant picked up national attention when it was featured on Food Network's Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives, with Guy Fieri specifically calling out the kitchen's inventive approach to pizza and beer pairings — recognition that validated a concept the Watsons had built somewhat against the grain of Denver's pizza scene at the time. For a Denver pizza list, Hops & Pie is the essential "pizza built around the beer list" entry — a sourdough-crust, Detroit-and-New-York-influenced pizza program paired with 22 rotating taps, a taproom-first approach to pizza that's earned it a loyal following and a Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives feature since opening in 2010.
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Cart-Driver
Cart-Driver started small — genuinely small — in a roughly 650-square-foot shipping container in Denver's RiNo neighborhood, founded by Andrew Birkholz in 2014 around wood-fired Neapolitan pizza made with a 200-year-old dough starter sourced from a volcanic island in the Gulf of Naples. That starter is the kind of detail that separates a restaurant chasing an authentic Neapolitan tradition from one simply borrowing the aesthetic, and it's stayed central to Cart-Driver's identity as the restaurant has grown well beyond its original shipping-container footprint. The restaurant expanded into a full Highland/LoHi space in 2019, pairing its wood-fired pies — including a signature margherita the menu calls "the Daisy" — with a broader raw bar and seasonal market-plate menu built around oysters, prosecco on tap, and craft cocktails. That's a meaningfully more polished, drink-forward setting than a typical thin-crust pizzeria, positioning Cart-Driver closer to a full night-out destination than a quick slice stop. Cart-Driver has been credited with helping bring a genuine wave of serious Neapolitan pizza to Denver, and the restaurant has backed that reputation with repeated Westword Best of Denver awards for best pizza — recognition that's held even through a temporary closure of the Highland location for plumbing repairs, after which the restaurant reopened rather than folding the concept. For a Denver pizza list, Cart-Driver is the essential "thin-crust pizza as a full night out" entry — a 200-year-old starter's worth of Neapolitan pizza tradition, paired with oysters and prosecco in a Highland dining room that grew out of a single RiNo shipping container.
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