Coal Pizza Company | Downtown Indy | Visited: Saturday, November 3, 2012

coalpizzacompany.com

Intro

Ben and I were invited to go to the Pacers' home opener (thanks Bruce!), which included a pregame dinner. We had planned to go to Pearl Street Pizzeria & Pub, just a full-court pass away from the Fieldhouse, but the place was packed (must be game night or something). So we ventured a block or two over to Coal Pizza Company.

I had never tried "coal-fired" pizza—at least I don't think I had—so I was interested and intrigued. Had I looked at their website before the visit, I would have learned that they feature "Neopolitan style artisan pizzas cooked in 90 seconds in our super hot 900 degree custom coal oven."

Atmosphere & Service

I liked the atmosphere very much. An older downtown building (right next door to The Libertine) with two stories of large windows in the front. The downstairs is where a lot of the action takes place, but we were seated in a very nice upstairs area with its own bar and plenty of TVs.

The service, however, was very, very slow. I cut them some slack because it was a Saturday night before an NBA game, but still. In fact, I talked with a few people after my visit, and they confirmed that service is their Achilles heel, even when there aren't 15,000 additional potential customers roaming the streets of Indy.

And I'm glad I hadn't visited their website beforehand, because their 90-second story would have been contrary to the fact that it took us 30+ minutes to get our pies. Jimmy John's brags that they're freaky fast. And they are. Even during a busy lunch rush. Coal may want to reconsider how they position themselves. (Some free, unsolicited marketing advice, from a pizza-loving marketing dude.)


Pizza (breadsticks)

Honestly, Coal should just sell itself on the merits of their food, which was outstanding. Their twisty breadsticks were stellar (I think I'm running out of adjectives, so forgive me if I reuse my descriptors in some of my posts). And they featured three local beers on tap—doing my part to drink local, I had both a Sun King and a Fountain Square Brew Co. 

It's not always easy to compare apples to apples in the world of pizza. We've tried to always order cheese (which Sophia likes), but there are obviously variations in flavor from the traditional to more artisan options.

At Coal, Ben and I ordered personal pizzas. His was pepperoni (regular cheese, nothing fancy) and I ordered the Tuscan, which was fennel sausage, roasted pepper, cracked red pepper and hand-pulled mozzarella. It was pretty spicy for pizza, but delicious. Ben's was a tasty (albeit straightforward) choice as well.

Crust, especially with the fire/coal oven variety, is always a delicate balance of crispy and doughy. Sometimes, this type of pizza is dry with no flavor to its dough. Coal's crust, however, got it just right—even though we had to wait a long time for it to find its way to our table.

Verbatims from Benjamin:

I like it. The crust is really good.

I don't want to be late to the Pacers game. :)

Rating (out of 8 possible slices, with 4 being average)

Dad: 6.5 (If you're looking for a good pizza joint downtown, definitely give Coal a try. Hopefully the service will be better for you.)

Benjamin: 6.5 (I sense a trend with Ben's ratings.)

No receipt photo this time, because Bruce picked up the check. Which is always a good thing.