Flying Pie Pizzaria-Nampa — Restaurant in Nampa

I’ve been a fan of the Fly Pies that exist to the northwest of the Boise area for years. And, though founded by friends of the local owners and maintaining some quirks/similarities, those Portland-area joints are decidedly their own thing.

I went to the Fairview location years ago and loved the vibe . . . and the salad bar (which, like the NW versions, has been shuttered ever since the pandemic). So this time, on the advice of a local, I tried out the new-ish Nampa location. Glad I did.

It is located in a nondescript strip mall, next to a Vape store and across the street from the one of the always sketchy-looking Tobacco Connections (“When You Gotta Habit”). The inside is exactly what you’d expect if you have been to any of the other Flying Pies: decidedly unique and offbeat, though not in a way that looks forced or shouts “Hey!!! Look at me!!! I’m cool!!!” The counter/ordering area is snug to the right and in front of the open kitchen. The other 2/3rds of the store are taken up with ample seating in both traditional and pub-height tables. There are two older pinball machines towards the back and near the self-serve soda machine, and also a nice selection of auto-pay draft beer stations against the back wall and to the left of the bathrooms. The industrial lights are unique. The walls are adorned with quirky cartoon references that stretch back into the 80s and 90s and your usual pizza joint beer displays.

We ordered a small vegan pie, a medium Contest Combo (a much less overloaded version of the Combo Supreme One and Combo 2 from the NW locations), a dinner salad, and some fountain drinks. As I alluded to a moment ago, the Boise-area pies tend towards less toppings, crust that is not as pronounced, and a more generous use of cornmeal on the bottom. It also seems like their cheese mix is a touch different, as it seizes a bit more as the pizza cools. That said, the pizza tastes great and has a nice mix of toppings. The garden salad, while basic is fresh (think iceberg mix as a base with fresh tomatoes and cukes) and comes with two sides of dressing. The soda fountain has the usual sugary offerings, along with flat water . . . and soda water (my preference).

The thing that links a place like this Nampa location with the ones in the Portland area, aside from the vibe/interiors, is the generally excellent customer service. Think laid back, perhaps ‘Devil’s Lettuce’ influenced, greetings and smiles. This visit, they kept checking on us, apologized for a slight delay and made sure we were enjoying our meal. We were.

Next time we are in the area, we will visit this location. The atmosphere was nice. The food was good. And the costs were, relatively speaking, fair given the quality of our meal. One note though: I think you spelled Bart’s signature phrase wrong (don’t trust the internet; he did use it multiple times in the early years of The Simpsons). Just saying.

And I think the overall average rating of 4.3 is slightly low, considering that some of the reviewers who left negative reviews struck me as: (a) overly harsh (you had great pizza, but got the wrong bread sticks, so you leave a 2-star review?!?!); or (b) a touch fantastical/hyperbolic in that “ohhhh, I feels so much better unleashing the beast and showing the internet my wrath!!!” way that makes me think of sad cats crying. The responses even these reviews get from the owner suggest that, while mistakes certainly do happen, they are willing to work on making things right.

Thanks for a nice first visit. Hope we get a chance to visit again soon....

Ordered carryout on a Saturday night, went to pick up the pizzas at 7 PM. The place was an absolute madhouse. First off, the parking here is very limited. This place shares parking with the same businesses in the strip mall area (which really isn't a big parking lot overall), and when I arrived I could not find a single spot. I decided to park on the other side of the street at some park n brew parking lot, but got lucky and saw a van pulling out in front of Flying Pie right before driving over.

Once I opened the door, the place was PACKED. Every table & seat was occupied, and a family who already ordered food to dine in, was standing right by the door. The interior really isn't that big, and once filled to the max, gets real loud. This is my first time here, and I ordered carry out at that, but if this is how it usually is, I cannot recommend dining inside because it's just too crowded and loud. Maybe this is just a byproduct of them opening recently in a new area OR the fact it was a Saturday night?

I ordered 2 pizzas (Garlic Chicken & Contest Combo), and both weren't as good as they were in Meridian (one of my very first reviews), IMO. Looking back, the Meridian location had a little more toppings, especially the amount of chicken on the Garlic Chicken pizza. Also, I could barely taste the garlic in the Garlic Chicken pizza, something which was in abundance at the Meridian location as well. I wasn't completely disappointed by Nampa's pizza, and for the most part I enjoyed the taste, but I just kept thinking about the Meridian location and how they added a lot of toppings. I just felt a little shorted here, especially for the price (which is still the same as it was before, pretty high).

Overall, this was a light 3 experience. Maybe it was just a series of unfortunate events that just gave me a bad first impression or maybe it's the fact that I don't enjoy being in crowded areas (or a combination of both) but I wasn't impressed at all.

I'm happy Flying Pie is making it easier for non Boise / Meridian residents to enjoy their pizza (for those that do enjoy it), but I'm just so disappointed in the physical location they picked. Maybe they didn't want to risk building out a bigger location due to fear of being unsuccessful in the Nampa / Caldwell area, but expanding to this area could have really been a great move if they just built a bigger space. There's clearly a demand here.

P.S. You guys need to update your website to now include the Nampa location under the "Our Menu" dropdown. At the moment, it's only showing Broadway Ave, Fairview Ave, State...

Customer service was HORRIBLE. We felt very unwelcome from the moment we walked in. The guy behind the counter, early 30s, clean shaven, semi curly brown hair, baseball hat on backwards, glared at us as we walked up to order. I thought by his attitude maybe they were closing soon, so I asked what time they closed. He rudely said, “40 minutes! But it takes 20-30 minutes to cook it!” I said well, we are getting it to go so that’s fine. My Aunt friendly stated what toppings she would like and he snapped at her and said, I can’t get anything started until I know what size you want! My aunt had already said the size, but the music was so loud I guess he didn’t hear that. But, regardless, he had no right to speak to us like that. We were being very kind. My aunt was having a little trouble with which way the credit card was supposed to go in the machine and he became super impatient and was extremely rude to her. After the transaction was complete, we walked to the bar area to sit down, and I noticed one of the chairs was wet, and I told my aunt not to sit on that one. I wasn’t complaining or anything. I guess the guy heard me say that and snapped at me saying, YEAH, THAT’S BECAUSE WE CLOSE IN 30 MINUTES AND WE WIPE THE BAR DOWN EARLY! We went to sit somewhere else because he made us feel bad for trying to sit there. Later when he brought us our pizza, he didn’t say a word and was very unpleasant, not smiling at all. We felt as if he just wants us out of there. As we were leaving, we said thank you as he walked passed us. He looked straight ahead and didn’t acknowledge us at all. We originally wanted to dine in, but felt so taken aback by his unprofessional rude behavior, that we ended up eating in the car in the parking lot instead. I have NEVER been treated so poorly by a restaurant employee in my life. The pizza was actually really tasty, too bad the customer service didn’t match the quality...