It’s a full-time job keeping the oven at a scorching 850 degrees, where pizzas take just 90 seconds to cook. Credit: Tyler Hickman
It takes three days for the dough at Crosscut Pizzeria and Taphouse to become a thing of beauty. That's just enough time for yeast to devour sugars and create the ideal gluten network that delivers a light, playful chewiness in every slice. Dissect the raw dough, and it literally looks like mesh; all the ingredients come together forming an intricate tapestry of proteins that give the dough structure.
Peel back the layers at this time-tested Nederland institution, and you’ll find an equally complex network of people and passion that’s been growing for a decade.
“Treating our co-workers and our employees like family is really part of who we are,” says Crosscut owner Seth Colter. “That's part of the reason why we're still here 10 years later, because we really care about these people. They are who we are.”
Crosscut’s Neopolitan-style pies and laid-back approach to high-quality food has turned it into a destination pizzeria — whether it’s a short walk, a drive up Boulder Canyon or a stop-off for out-of-state skiers. As Colter celebrates his 10th year at the helm, he says he owes it all to just a few things: good dough, quality ingredients and a great team.
Colter joined Crosscut as a line cook in January 2016, just a few months after it opened. At the time, the former Longmont Cheese Importers chef and his wife Jessie were scoping out properties to open their own restaurant in Ned. There was a rift in the ownership group at Crosscut, and when current partners Shannon Tupa and Peter Marshall caught wind of Colter’s plans, they asked him to buy into the pizzeria instead.
“It was hard for us to decide in many ways, partially because we were scared, financially,” Colter says. “But the feel of the restaurant from the beginning, and the food, the philosophy of the restaurant, felt right.”
They joined the ownership group in March of that year. Colter’s first order of business was refining the “handwritten home recipe” that was the brainchild of original owner Dawn Dennison, tweaking “just more than a tablespoon of this and just less than a cup of this, to something that was measured in grams.”
Like mad pizza scientists, they experimented with flours from across the country and around the world. They picked a crust with the best texture, feel and taste: baked with Bay State flour, grown and milled right here in Colorado. “It’s one of those things that made perfect sense and fit perfectly into what we are.”
The philosophy at Crosscut is closely tied to pizza’s own identity: easy, fun, and — done right — delicious.
“We try to make everything in a simple way,” Colter says. “Very simple, but very good.”
Colorado is not California, he assures, but the Crosscut owner does draw inspiration from the California cuisine movement, popularized by Chez Panisse founder and chef Alice Waters. Simple food, locally sourced with care for where those ingredients come from.
Like Crosscut’s red sauce, made with organic Bianco DiNapoli tomatoes. Or the menu packed with delicious pork, all sourced from farms that humanely raise their animals. It goes beyond what’s on the plate, though.
“It’s not only the food. It’s making a community space where people feel comfortable and where they can enjoy themselves.”
For anyone strolling by Crosscut in the bitter Peak to Peak winter, the warm glow from the wood-fired oven and scent of garlic tugging at their nose is an open invite into that comfort.
It’s a hard invite to turn down, no matter where you’re coming from. The pizzeria and taphouse has developed quite the cult following; Reddit posters asking for the best pizza in Boulder are sent up the hill, and Colter’s brothers have been stopped on the street in Crosscut merch as far away as the East Coast.
The proof is in the pies. Crosscut sells hundreds of pizzas a day, and just recently churned out a record 746 in a single Saturday service. “That's basically like one pizza every 52 seconds, all day long, from the moment we open until we close,” he says. “Doing that was exciting too, because we were breaking our own records. We were stoked about that.”
It sounds dizzying, but Colter says they just do what they know best. He makes it a point to use the word “we” when he speaks about the hum of the restaurant. “We’re not trying to do anything too crazy, and we’re not trying to be anything that’s too new. We’re just trying to be real and true to the ingredients.”
Like a buzzing beehive, Colter’s got the process down to a science.
With the restaurant slinging hundreds of pies a day, being a dough maker is a full-time job. Each service, they prep dozens of dough balls from tubs of their three-day fermentation batches. One more day of rest, and they’re ready for the line.
Two pizza makers, tossing, throwing and stretching the dough into flat disks — each with their own signature method — work in a semi-open kitchen, on stage for diners to ooh and awe.
Then it’s down with the sauce. Take your pick: the sweet but prickly black pepper ricotta, velvety garlic cream sauce or good old fashioned tomato, to name a few. “One general rule is less is more,” Colter says. Pile on any number of cheeses, meats and veggies, then it’s into the oak-fired oven. Colter won’t use any other wood: “It burns really hot, and doesn’t have a lot of flavor.”
Ninety seconds. That’s all that stands between you and bubbly cheese, crispy pepperoni and a light, chewy crust with just the right amount of char.
As much success as the last decade has brought Crosscut, they also stay true to the little mountain town they call home.
“We really care about the community,” Colter says.
Nederland’s been through a lot in the past year. Power outages have kept the town in the dark, and the Oct. 9 Lakeview Fire that destroyed the town’s Caribou Shopping Village took a piece of Ned’s spirit with it. “We were like a hub for people to come when they weren’t feeling OK.”
“Even when all shit hits the fan, we can still pour a beer and make a pizza.”
ON THE PLATE: Crosscut Pizzeria and Taphouse, 4 E. 1st St., Nederland.
