Papa Murphy's | Take 'N' Bake Pizza — Restaurant in Prescott Valley

It's been a while since I've come in here, but that's from a change in my routine, not this shop...

Much like most Americans, I LOVE pizza!! Everyone has their opinion about what a pizza should be, but from my experience, they have great pizza here. I love it from the second you walk in and it smells fresh and delicious. All the ingredients are laid out for you to see, and there's a big selection of them, and different sauces too. The staff has always been friendly, the store is clean, and they're quick about it.

For those who didn't see the, "Take & Bake," part of the title, or don't fully understand, you walk in, tell them what kind of pizza you want, and what kind of crust, and they go in the back, grab out the fresh dough, and start building your pizza, and within a couple minutes, you walk out with a pizza that you take home, turn on your oven and drool over it, and try not to pick off all the topings before you stick it in the oven.

In exchange for baking it yourself instead of ordering, you choose how well the crust is, you get a larger pizza for the same price, you get better, fresher ingredients, and it's super hot & fresh when you bite into it, not up to 45min old, soggy & steamed by the time it shows up at your door. You can also take the money you save on tipping someone and also buy a salad or cookie dough that they also sell.

I'll be honest about myself, I'm picky about toppings, and at times think I know better, or more about what's going to taste better on a specialty pizza than the team of experts that have worked weeks/months on deciding what toppings taste better on it, but I have learned that if I'm getting a specialty pizza, like when they have their rare, Mexican pizza, or their chicken & bacon, or my favorite, the thai pizza, just stick with the toppings that's meant to be on there. If you want to experiment, then do that with a regular pizza.

I have also learned from experience to stick with the thin crust. The crust is good, but it tends to take away from how great the sauce & fresh toppings are, though at least once you have to try their stuffed pizza, (or sometimes called pie,) which is dough, toppings, dough, sauce and more toppings.

I even went to khules recycling in Prescott and picked up a 1" slab of aluminium and cut it down to fit in my oven to use as a pizza stone to get some amazing crisp on the crust to showcase how much better a pizza out of your oven tastes when it's fresh. Granted, a professional pizza oven is around 900 degrees, but there are a few tricks. First, a stone, and what that does is hold onto the heat and focus it on the bottom of the crust, 2nd, you let the oven heat for an hour with the stone in it, and that allows the entire oven get hot so you also get radiant heat from all angles, and 3rd, you turn off the bake setting, and turn on the broil burner to the temp it tells you to bake it at... (Love at 425 is their motto.) You're not, "Broiling," the pizza, so make sure you have it on the center rack, and those three steps turns your regular oven into a pizza oven. I would research that yourself on Google, or, America's Test Kitchen to verify, but...

From the philly area,you can't throw a rock without hitting a 5 star pizza place. 3 years here, still can't find a place that I would go back to. This place is no exception. The guys are nice but that is where the fun stops. Tried to order online, took for ever. Got to the store only to find out order did not go through. Poor guy had to try and figure out how to do the online special price in the store. Thought we would just get a pizza to take home for a quick late lunch. Wrong, you can't just cook them you have to let them sit on the counter for an hour to rise. Then you can start the process. Ok so now an early dinner is more like it. There are tips on the pizza that say for a crispier crust slide the pie off the magic tray and cook directly on the rack. So we did that. Now pie is done and we can't get the magic tray back under the thing to get it out of the oven,the tray is wet from condensation so now where do we put the pie to cut it,what a mess. Let me say that this pie was not worth half the trouble it took to make. Even with like half a pound of pepperoni on it this had absolutely no flavor. Tried adding some imported oregano and hot pepper flakes, even that could not save this. The crust was a flavorless starch disc kind of reminded us of what they serve in a school cafeteria. ( the dogs did enjoy the bits of crust we tossed them) This cost as much as some of the sit down places in town and I had to do all the work. Must say I don't get the concept, you buy a pizza for the convenience of just taking it home cracking open a beer and eating it. Sorry to say we won't be doing this again. Even pizzas we had fedexed from back home were 100%...

Great take & bake pizza, their $5 pizza is way better then $5 Little Caesars, with many more options on their menu and monthly specials. There are monthly coupons printed in the money-in-the-mail booklet, and they have always been good about taking them, even old ones, always very accommodating. I saw someone bring one in from their review page without a verification code and they still took it, now that is service! Tuesday's are buy any large pizza for $10 - any crust, any sauce, any toppings! I have tried almost every kind of pizza here and they are all good, something for everyone and easily customized if you want to as well. I have also tried the gluten free crust with olive oil, cheese and pepperoni and it tasted like a really good garlic bread. They do say their kitchen is not gluten free but they try to keep it separated as much as possible, just ask them and they can explain their process for you. This store has very friendly staff and they are always helpful. They can get busy so get pizza early in the day if you can or just expect a little wait, but it is well worth it! Take it home, bake it fresh, and you will be...