Pizza Lab — Restaurant in Central City

We stopped at Pizza Lab with a large family group during the Sturgis rally and had a good experience overall. As someone with celiac disease, I’m always cautious, and this place delivered on safety—even if not fully on taste.

The vibe is casual and quirky. You walk in and pass a sign that says something like “Seat yourself / order here,” and then it opens up into a large, open seating area. Perfect for kids (who were admittedly a little wound up). They’ve got chalkboards for the little ones, quarter machines scattered throughout, and free WiFi—though I didn’t see the password posted anywhere.

That’s when I met the owner. He greeted us and was welcoming—definitely a quirky guy, kind of like the quiet one from Penn & Teller. When I asked for the WiFi password, he responded in a way that made it sound like he didn’t understand me… but it turns out the password is literally a joke designed to mess with you. It caught me off guard, made me laugh, and was one of those moments that some people will find funny—and others might not.

As for the food: the kids and my spouse liked their regular pizzas. I ordered a gluten-free pizza (his daughter apparently preps these and takes cross-contamination seriously—separate surfaces, etc.), which I really appreciated. That said, don’t come expecting an artisanal GF crust. Mine was a rectangular, medium-thick crust with pretty sparse toppings. It didn’t wow me flavor-wise, but I didn’t get sick, and I’m highly sensitive—so a win there (rare in most pizza shops).

Decor leans eclectic-retro with some liberal themes, but nothing overpowering. Overall, Pizza Lab is a good stop—especially with kids or big groups. If you’re gluten-free, it’s not gourmet, but it is safe, and sometimes that’s what...

First time here and we arrived at 7pm and the guy behind the counter seemed annoyed we were ordering food. I told him we never been here before and he just walked away as we were looking at the menu. Would have been nice if he recommended something to us. It was semi busy but no line to order. I felt like we were rushed to order since you order at the counter. As we were checking out he made the comment “just made it, we are about to stop taking orders” thought that was odd since they are still open for another HOUR. We left around 7:50 and there were people still ordering pizza so I wasn’t sure why he made that comment to us. Pizza was average, nothing special. We ordered simple sausage and pepperoni since we were rushed. Didn’t know it was cracker crust pizza, but apparently the couple next to us had hand tossed. Had no clue they offered that. You’d think he would have asked what kind of crust we wanted at the counter. It honestly tasted like frozen Jacks pizza the next day when we ate leftovers at lunch. The only thing we really enjoyed was the cheese bread. It’s all self serve: drinks, silverware, napkins, bussing your table as they had a bucket for silverware above the garbage. My receipt still had gratuity recommendations which is wild considering they’re a no service establishment. I don’t think we...

Wow! I can’t believe the type of service we received. We’re visiting from out of town and we were excited to try this place. Once we arrived we were told by staff that it’s open seating, so we found an open table and cleaned-up/bussed our own table. Once we sat down we waited for about 20 minutes before anyone came up to our table to take our order. Finally we had someone come up and tell us they didn’t have time to serve us as they closed nearly an hour later and they had too many people waiting for Pizzas. They offered to place an order to-go for us but said we couldn’t sit and wait for our pizza. Oddly enough as we took our children and walked out of the restaurant we noticed no one else was waiting for their pizza. I stopped at the restroom on my way out and as soon as I came out, our table was already filled with new guests. The worst part of it all is our children questioning why we had to leave. They didn’t understand! How do we explain racism in today’s society? We’re not welcome to order pizza and enjoy time with our family, but everyone else is? Come on...