On Saturday, Kansas City-based Spin! Pizza began pizza-bombing the Lone Star State with its grand opening in Richardson. This is the first of four locations slated to launch in Texas (with Southlake, Irving, and SMU to follow), offering Neapolitan-style pizza in a fast-casual environment.
The menu is loaded with options. Pizzas are divided into two categories: pizza rossa (with marinara sauce) and pizza bianca (white pizza with a roasted garlic olive oil glaze). Specialty 12" pizzas range from $10.25-$13.45, with choices such as the Tre Carni (meatballs, pepperoni, and Italian sausage) and a roasted potato pizza with pancetta. If you opt to create your own pizza, you have a wide palette of toppings to work with, including roasted vegetables, gorgonzola, glazed pecans, and fig onion marmalade. With any pizza, you can take your pick of crusts: original, wheat (+.50), or gluten-free (+3.00).
If you're pizza'ed out, you're in luck. Non-pizza choices include soups, salads, paninis, and flatbreads with dips. If you can't decide between soup or salad, you can go for a combo such as the the ½ BLT salad and cup of white bean minestrone ($8.25). Paninis include the spicy Italian beef and the chicken with cherry pepper relish and pancetta mayo.
Spin! offers several "pizza-loving" beverages. When you first walk in, you'll probably notice the "Spin Bin"--wines that are rotated daily and organized according to their different qualities. You can buy a bin bottle for $24, a 7 oz. glass of house wine for $5.95, or a glass of premium barrel wine for $6.95. They also offer Peroni, craft beers, and three types of sangria (red, white, and blood orange), any of which might be best enjoyed from the small patio area.
Bringing the bambini? Your kids will love this place, and you will love it for not being Cici's. Most likely, they will be captivated by the guy spinning dough in the air behind a large window when you enter the restaurant. The $4.95 kids' meal includes a mini cheese or pepperoni pizza (or mac 'n cheese), a drink, plus a token they can trade in a mini scoop at the gelato counter once they've eaten enough other stuff to appease you.
Don't leave without scoping out the gelato. Staff is generous with samples, which may or may not aid your decision-making process. All-natural flavors (which are rotated) include double malt, Mackinac Island fudge, mint chocolate chip, and blueberry butter cookie. Can you really go wrong?
For lunchtime on opening day, Spin! appeared to be doing a pretty brisk business. Set to the soundtrack of Green Day, R.E.M., and Cake, the place was packed with families with kids still dressed in their soccer jerseys from that morning's game. In a location that was once an ill-fated sushi restaurant, it seems this pizza joint may have found the right fit for the neighborhood.
This week, they're donating 15 percent of sales to the North Texas Food Bank, which might just help you justify that extra scoop of gelato.
You can find Spin! Pizza at 348 W. Campbell Rd. in Richardson, www.spinpizza.com
