The Story of The Pie

Just steps from the University of Utah campus, follow the smell of garlic and freshly baked pizza dough down the stairs, past the colorful murals, and into The Pie. Inside, you’ll find old brick walls covered with decades of graffiti, candlelit tables, and a mix of students, professors, families, and longtime regulars enjoying their latest Pie fix.

It’s the kind of place where people gather to eat, hang out, listen to music, and occasionally even study. Our live webcams have given people around the world a glimpse of life inside The Pie for years. To generations of Salt Lakers, it’s more than a college hangout, it’s simply The Pie.

You Know the Legend, Here's the Story

Our original Underground location has been a Salt Lake landmark since 1980. Tucked away in the basement beneath the University Pharmacy, it has never been the easiest restaurant to find. For years, the only sign was hidden behind a wall near 200 South and 1320 East. But people found us anyway, and they kept coming back.

Long before The Pie, the basement was home to a pizza and pasta restaurant called Bimbo’s in the Cellar. It opened in 1965, when a 14-inch pizza cost just $2.20 and there were only a few pizza restaurants in the Salt Lake Valley. The seats were old wooden church pews, and the restaurant reportedly closed on Sundays so the space could be used for church services.

In 1980, the Palmer family took over with a simple idea: create a place where college students could relax, eat great food, study, and listen to music. The idea caught on quickly. Students came by the hundreds, word spread, and The Pie eventually grew from one underground restaurant to six locations stretching from Ogden to South Jordan.

More than 46 years later, The Pie is still 100% family-owned and locally operated.

We Still Do Things the Old-School Way

The Pie doesn’t take shortcuts. We believe good pizza takes time, and it would be a miracle if your pizza showed up in five minutes.

Our dough is made from scratch, double-proofed for 24 hours, and then hand-rolled and tossed. We shred our whole-milk mozzarella, slice our meats and vegetables fresh, and make our sauces and dressings in-house. Every pizza is made to order, no frozen crusts or bags of pre-shredded cheese.

We don’t do it this way because it became a culinary trend. We do it because it’s how we’ve been making pizza since 1980. Around here, it has always been about more than the transaction. It’s about the food, the people, and the experience.

Over the years, The Pie has been named Utah’s favorite pizza in countless reader polls and was once ranked the seventh-best pizza in the country by Citysearch. We’re grateful for every award, but what means the most is seeing generations of customers come through our doors, and add their names to our brick walls.

Come find us, grab a pizza, and become part of The Pie’s history.

Thank you for making us a part of Utah for more than 46 years.