New North Texas Pizza Spot Draws Long Opening-Night Line

Dallas is a hot spot for big restaurant openings: Delilah and its $29 chicken strips, AVRA, and even Prince Street Pizza, to name a few. These are all met with lots of social media videos and big-rock-star energy. But few of them give out free food for two hours on opening night.

But this line out the door of the new Burattino Pizza in North Richland Hills has us looking for our invite.

Burattino Pizza is a California import; the first location opened in San Pedro 10 years ago. In that time, it has amassed more than a million followers on Instagram. It’s easy to see why: the continuous stream of piping-hot, cheesy, greasy pizzas has us checking the miles on Google Maps.

On opening day in North Texas (Feb. 22), a line snaked out the door, past several businesses, ending at a dumpster in the parking lot. People set up chairs outside the door two hours before they opened. The restaurant in North Richland Hills was offering two hours of free pizza.

Owner Emil Chiberi told Culture Map he’s focused on growing the brand in North Texas and hopes to open more locations.

The Pizza Hype

The base of Burattino’s pie is a crispy brick-oven baked pizza, loaded with toppings, cheese and sauce that reaches to the edge of the pie much like a tavern style.

The calzones are massive, super stuffed, overly cheesy crime scenes. Here’s a highlight reel of the popular pizzas:

• Dirty Pepperoni: described as a long-time fan favorite, made with pepperoni, black olives with a black garlic sauce.
• White Clam: chopped clams, bacon, garlic, oregano, mozzarella and Parmesan cheese with a white garlic sauce.
• World Famous 120 Pepperoni: an extra large with, we guess, 120 pieces of pepperoni.
• Mexican Pepperoni: red and green chorizo, bacon, garlic, red onion, jalapenos and mozzarella over a chunky mild salsa sauce.
• Bianca: white garlic sauce, mozzarella and feta with fresh basil.
• Burattino Signature Calzone: “Use your imagination to build the calzone of your dreams,” dares the menu description.

There are also three salads on offer, including a loaded house salad (roasted red peppers, red onions, black olives, cucumbers and more), a Mediterranean and a chicken Caesar salad.

Prices

The pies and calzones here are big. There are two sizes, medium and large. A medium basic cheese pizza costs $12.99, and an extra-large costs $21.99. Fancier options cost a bit more. The medium Dirty Pepperoni is $17.99 and the extra-large is $26.99. Still not bad for the amount of pizza.

We’ll check in soon and get back with a first look.

Burattino Pizza, 6305 Precinct Line Road, North Richland Hills; Sunday – Thursday 11 a.m. to 9 p.m.; Friday – Saturday 11 a.m. – 10 p.m.