We Tried The Chick-Fil-A Pizza Pie, And It Was Worth The Trip
Before Chick-fil-A was Chick-fil-A, founder S. Truett Cathy worked his culinary magic on a variety of dishes found within the blue-colored menu at his Dwarf Grill in Hapeville, Georgia, and the spirit of that original restaurant is now serving as inspiration for a new concept. While Chick-fil-A is available in most states, their new spin-off, Little Blue Menu, is at only one location in College Park. The menu at Little Blue Menu offers up the usual Chick-fil-A goodies, but also includes unheard-of things within this world like wings, burgers, pastries, and pizzas. Pizzas? Yes, pizzas!
There are more than a handful of pizzas on Little Blue Menu's menu, but one in particular has caught the public's eye, and made their mouths water at just the thought of it — the Chick-fil-A Pizza Pie. The name doesn't say much about it, but imagine Chick-fil-A signature chicken nuggets splayed out on a crust, drizzled with Chick-fil-A sauce as pizza sauce, and topped off with a slice of a pickle. Stuart Tracy, Senior Culinary Lead Developer said in a press release, "We've noticed our customers getting creative with Chick-fil-A ingredients on pizzas at home, so, we've decided to jump on board!" He added, "Your taste buds already know the flavors, so it's love before first bite."
I just happened to be breezing by College Park, Maryland, and was beyond curious to see if it was still love after first bite. This chew and review is based on taste, texture, originality, Chick-fil-A-ity, and overall lovability.
Read more: The 101 Best Pizzas In America
What Does The Chick-Fil-A Pizza Pie Taste Like?
The 11-inch Chick-fil-A Pizza Pie is a thing of beauty, cut into six uneven slices. It was full of the aroma of sour dill, garlic, and a medley of sharp melty cheeses, which were all good signs. It looked like a barbecue chicken pizza, with its cherry on top being a single crinkle-cut pickle slice on each piece.
Visually it was a lot to take in, and eating it proved to be a little overwhelming at first. There were a lot of competing tastes here, from the juicy and tender chicken bits, the sweetalicious Chick-fil-A sauce that acted as the pie's glue, and the crunchy and briny pickle that could barely stay on when holding a slice in my hand. The more nibbles I took, the more the taste came into focus, becoming a marvelous mélange of flavors. The bottom dough was dense, and up to the challenge of keeping things in order, but a tad hard to chew.
Luckily, its top crust proved to be the perfect end to polishing off a slice. Equally crispy and crackery, and with a taste like an elongated buttery garlic knot, it made me wish that Little Blue Menu sold breadsticks of just this pizza's crust. This pizza pie didn't have a Chick-fil-A look to it, but its taste did have the essence of what has made the chain famous — chicken slathered in its creamy namesake sauce, and punctuated perfectly with a pickle.
Chick-Fil-A Pizza Pie Nutritional Information
The Chick-fil-A Pizza Pie is overloaded with ingredients, and not just on the surface. The crust is made of bleached white flour, and flavored with salt, sugar, butter, garlic, and miso paste. It's topped with low-moisture mozzarella cheese and pecorino Romano cheese, boneless and skinless chicken breast meat nuggets, pickle slices, honey-roasted BBQ sauce, mustard, dill pickle spice, and garlic emulsion, just to name more than a few.
The serving size is one whole pizza, so for nutritional info per slice, divide the following numbers by six. The pie contains a whopping 1,260 calories, 50 grams of total fat, 23 grams of saturated fat, 1 gram of trans fat, 175 milligrams of cholesterol, an absurd 2,530 milligrams of sodium, 73 grams of protein, 128 grams of total carbohydrates (19 grams of which are from sugars), and 5 grams of dietary fiber. The pizza contains allergens from egg, milk, soy, and wheat.
How To Buy The Chick-Fil-A Pizza Pie
The Chick-fil-A Pizza Pie is exclusively available at the Chick-fil-A offshoot Little Blue Menu, at 7242 Baltimore Ave in College Park, Maryland. It's right next to the University of Maryland campus (Go Terps!), and not far outside Washington, D.C. This is one of six pizzas on its menu, and this one retails for $9.99, plus tax.
The pizza can only be ordered for pick up, delivery, or catering after breakfast ends at 10:30 am, and when Chick-fil-A starts serving lunch, up until closing time, which is 10 pm. Chick-fil-A is famously closed on Sundays, and Little Blue Menu follows that rule too. Orders can be placed through the Chick-fil-A app or website, and it appears that walk-in orders, while not encouraged, can be taken by an employee on a tablet device in-store. For advance orders, as soon as you pay for your meal, preparation of it will begin immediately. This is unlike ordering in advance from a standard Chick-fil-A, which advises customers to be in the vicinity of the store before the order is prepared.
The pizza came pre-sliced, with no plates. It was accompanied by 0.12-ounce packets of Roseli's crushed red pepper flakes and grated Parmesan cheese. The Little Blue Menu has no interior seating, but does have a few umbrella-covered tables on its patio. Extra toppings of your choice can be added to the pie. Some are free and some come at a cost, including extra pickles for an additional $1.49.
The Final Verdict
Everything about my first encounter with Chick-fil-A's Little Blue Menu concept felt utterly special. Ordering in the app felt like tapping into a secret menu for those in the know. Arriving in the parking lot, the structure kinda looked like a modern malt shoppe teleported out of Happy Days, and a ton of college students in and around the facility lent an upbeat and hip atmosphere to hang out in.
It took about 15 minutes from when I placed my order in my car, to when I finally heard my first name and last initial called inside. I opened my pizza and felt like I won the lottery. Apparently, none of the other customers had ordered this before, and instantly became jealous of my pizzazzy pizza with its comely aromas.
Had I not been sharing this pie with a loved one, I could have easily polished it off on my lonesome. I felt truly blessed to be able to down four of these slices. The Chick-fil-A Pizza Pie was certainly a real treat, and although I'm not going to be making pilgrimages to eat it every time I return to Maryland, I would love to see it as an option at my local, or even your local Chick-fil-A. Variety is the spice of life, and this pizza with dill pickle spice is a fabulous option that should exist on all of the chain's menus. The only upgrade it needs is a better name. How about Chick-Pizz-yeAh?
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