Longmont has a serious pizza problem. Specifically, there is an unreasonable, borderline offensive concentration of outrageously good pizzerias crammed into a city of barely 100,000 people.
Sure, Denver can brag about Cart-Driver and Blue Pan. Boulder flexes Audrey Jane’s Pizza Garage, and Lakewood throws Pizzeria Leopold around like itap a giant, spinning wheel of cartoon pizza dough. But in Longmont, three heavyweights — Rosalee’s Pizzeria, Urban Field Pizza and Market and Antonio’s Real New York Pizza — sit casually within a few blocks of each other.
A few blocks!
And while Longmont is always a sacred destination for crust purists, on Saturday, Sept. 5, it will become something else entirely. The downtown area, near the intersection of 4th Avenue and Kimbark Street, will host the inaugural . (The state’s first-ever pizza fest, if you can believe it; something that feels like a historical oversight we’re finally correcting.)
More than 20 pizzerias from across the state will sling slices side-by-side, effectively turning downtown Longmont into an open-air cathedral of melted cheese.
The secret sauce to Longmontap pizza reign? It isn’t shackled to a single pizza identity. Itap not locked into the rigid dogma of New York, Chicago or Detroit. No, Longmont has something much better. It has options — a distinct pizza ecosystem that collects the best flavors and styles from around the world and fires them up in a town where you can devour your square or triangular slice with an unobstructed, postcard view of Longs Peak in the background.
People who know pizza have taken notice. Rosalee’s ranked 14th on a best pizza in America list last year, the only Colorado shop to make the cut. Their New York-style-but-crispier pies are certainly deserving, built on a long cold-fermentation dough, piled with traditional toppings (read: no Thai chicken or mac and cheese here) and baked to perfection in a 625-degree electric oven. Urban Field, which does both Detroit and artisan round pizzas, earned fifth place in the world at the 2025 International Pizza Expo for its golden, lace-edged Detroit-style pies. The Washington Post called Antonio’s the best New York pizzeria in Colorado.
And 13-time World Pizza Champion Tony Gemignani (who will be judging Pizza Festap amateur competition) recently chose Longmont for a Colorado outpost of his Slice House eatery; he already has locations in Boulder and Loveland.
Which begs the question: how did this sleepy Front Range town become the epicenter for all things good pizza? Just ask the people building it. When Nick Swanson was scouting spots for his Urban Field Pizza and Market ahead of its 2022 opening, he said he toured 200 potential restaurants along the Front Range, from Fort Collins to Denver to Louisville.
“When we were looking for locations, we just loved the sense of community here,” Swanson said. “Longmont is such a tight-knit community. People who live in Longmont are so proud of the fact they’re from Longmont. It runs so deep here, so they support their own. They just show up.”
Especially in such a small town, you might expect the pizzerias to be fiercely territorial. Instead, they’re incredibly collaborative; Urban Field, Rosalee’s and Antonio’s recently teamed up to form Pizza With Purpose, the community-minded, philanthropic backbone of the Colorado Pizza Festival.
“When all the SNAP benefits were getting erased for people, some of us in the community started talking. What can we do to help? It took one meeting. The three of us sat down and brainstormed the idea: Letap throw a pizza party. What better way to get people excited about raising money for food insecurity than throwing the ultimate pizza party?” Swanson said.
And so, on Saturday, Sept. 5 at least, Longmont will claim the official, undisputed crown as Colorado’s pizza capital when it hosts the inaugural Pizza Fest. Proceeds benefit hunger relief organizations across the state, including Slice Out Hunger, Longmont Food Rescue, Community Food Share and Colorado Friendship. All we, the pizza-loving public, have to do to help is show up and eat as many slices as the stretchiness of our stomach linings allow.
The heavy hitters on the Longmont pie scene will be there, of course, but so will Slice House by Tony Gemignani, Audrey Jane’s Pizza Garage, Joy Hill Pizza out of Denver, Boulder’s Barchetta, Pizzeria Leopold and at least 15 more.
They won’t merely show up with boxes of pizza, either. They’ll bring their dough and ingredients and bake fresh pies on-site, selling slices of cheese plus a specialty pizza with a rotating lineup of toppings. Itap a massive undertaking, turning Main Street into a blocks-wide pizza party. Itap also an invitation for the rest of the state to come on up and see what Longmontap cooking.
“More than anything, I want people to come up and see what Longmontap all about,” Swanson said. “It’ll be fun to get all these pizzerias together.”
Colorado Pizza Festival; Saturday, Sept. 5; 1-10 p.m., in downtown Longmont, $15 general admission + $3-4 per slice or $50 Golden Ticket;
