I’m back! This last week has been exhausting- I think the dust has settled from back to school excitement and all that’s left to do is buckle down and focus on school, work and business with extracurricular activities.

It’s only the third week back and I already feel it taking a toll on me. All the work had me rearing to go out and explore some more uncharted territory of my hometown.

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This week I chose the Hot Tomato. For those of you who don’t know what that is, you can probably find their stickers scattered around campus, on car bumpers and all over downtown Grand Junction.

The Hot Tomato is a pizza eatery in downtown Fruita, about a 20-25 minute drive from Colorado Mesa University. This place is a well-talked-about local restaurant. I had never gone before, despite living here for twenty years.

I hadn’t heard much about it other than it was a really neat place to go and it was a local business. Since I’m all about both kinds of places, this was a perfect destination for this week’s adventure.

I’m not a big fan of New York style pizza, I think there are much better pizzas out there, but I can’t really knock a place until I try it. One thing you notice right away about the Hot Tomato is the people.

When I got there, it took a minute to find a place to park, because this place was packed. There were lots of locals milling about outside and filtering in and out. If that’s not a good sign of a food place, I don’t know what is. After finding a place to park (and snapping a couple pics of the outside,) I headed in to see what all the fuss was about.

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Unlike a lot of restaurants, it was a really relaxed environment. Loud music, local brews and a pretty filled dining room (despite the fact that it was 8:30 p.m. on a Tuesday night.)

When you walk in, I recommend snagging a table first, setting your things down and hopping in line. You have to order up at the front counter, they’ll give you a drink cup and you’ll be able to sit back down and wait for your food.

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One of the first things I noticed is that you can buy pizzas by the slice. I feel like this really is unique with New York style pizza, and it’s one of it’s redeeming qualities. There’s only three places, that I know of, in Grand Junction where this is an option and it’s Pablo’s Pizza on Main Street, Bravo Pizza by CMU and now the Hot Tomato.

It’s great because it lets you try different kinds of pizza without fully committing. The Hot Tomato has three options to choose from for single-slice, and you can customize your toppings for whichever you choose.

They also offer slices of the Stromboli. Stromboli is like a meat-lovers pizza married a Hot Pocket, but without the gross Hot Pocket taste. And it was probably my favorite thing I got to try when I visited the Hot Tomato. Guys, this Stromboli is so good, I could probably eat it all day.

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On another note, I also tried a side salad and a slice of Granny’s Pesto. The salad was beautiful. I think side salads in general can be pretty disappointing, but this was so full of olives and mushrooms and really fresh leafy greens.

It was pretty apparent that nothing in it was prepared early. Working in a restaurant myself, I understand the need to having food prepped in advance, but it’s an undisputed fact that things are better when they aren’t.

For the most part it really is worth the wait to get fresh foods. Overall my whole order (a drink, the Stromboli, the side salad and the pizza) came out to be about $15 and some change.

The only thing I was disappointed in was the pizza. And I think most of that was my bias against New York pizza. One thing that’s worth mentioning is the drink selection. A lot of places offer either Pepsi or Coke but I don’t think the Hot Tomato really offered either.

Instead, they had a lot of different sodas in tons of different flavors, like ginger ale and cream soda. It was kind of refreshing to have to break away from the usual drink selections.

Another thing I would really regret not mentioning is the staff. Oh my gosh, the staff. The guy at the counter was wearing a T-Shirt that said “Legalize Marinara” and a really big grin.

All of the staff from the bartender to the cooks (who you can watch from behind the counter) and the cashiers were all friendly. They seemed like an incredibly tight-knit group.

It was fun watching them interact with one another while making food, delivering orders to the tables and so on. Everyone seemed to be really enjoying themselves in a genuine fashion. It’s pretty rare to see employees that happy to be at work, and if there’s one thing that will bring me back to the Hot Tomato it’s that display of happiness.

While it was fun exploring, I don’t know when I’ll be back to the Hot Tomato. I don’t live in Fruita and nothing really takes me out that way too often. If I am, for whatever reason, craving a big slice of pizza, I’ll definitely be heading to Bravo’s.

If I’m wanting to support a local pizza business I’ll probably be at Pablo’s or Junction Square Pizza downtown.

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Whether you love it or you hate it, I think the Hot Tomato is worth a visit. I love Grand Junction, but our Palisade and Fruita counterparts are equally unique and great and worthy of the drive.

Stay tuned next week to see where I’m going next!