Peace O’ Pie Opening in Allston [Vegan Pizza Joint]
Posted by Drew.
This is starting to become a weird trend: a great vegan restaurant closes then a new vegan restaurant opens in its place.
When Quan Yin closed, Veggie Corner quickly set up shop in its old location. Well, TJ’s house of vegan pizza just recently closed, but now Peace ‘O Pie is opening in its place.
Their website says they have new owners, a new look, new recipes, and a new attitude. Personally, I liked the old attitude. Peace O’ Pie is calling themselves a gourmet pizza place, but I hope the new attitude isn’t snooty.
There aren’t many details out yet, but they have a website up: http://PeaceOPie.com and you can find them on twitter too: @VeganPizza.
It should be opening sometime in September, but I haven’t heard a particular opening date yet. Hopefully there’ll be more details soon.
What do you think? Did you like the old TJ’s? Are you pysched about this new vegan place place?
September 11, 2009
Tags: Allston, Boston, pizza!, vegan cheese Posted in: More Veg Options, News, Restaurants & Businesses, Veggie Corner
4 Responses
Uh, you liked the old atmosphere? The one where stinky, smoking crust punkers made your pizza without washing their hands?
I liked the old, old atmosphere with the original owner, pre-Scallywaggles goofiness. Actually, I didn’t mind the hippie guy either. But could do without the crust punkers.
[...] of good restaurant news this week.Even though TJ’s is closed, Allston will soon have vegan pizza again, in Worcester Veggie Corner has been open for a few weeks, and now a new veg restaurant is open in [...]
i liked the crust punkers. they were awesome people… and about not washing their hands, i think b. murphy is being a little exaggerative there…
but anyway peace o pie is now open, and i just came back from there. i have to say the food is really good. the atmosphere is a lot different and i probably won’t go as much as tjs (i went to tjs at least twice a week)… this place i will probably go like once a month.
its just too expensive to go that often. me and friend ordered 2 drinks, a pizza, and breaksticks – $30. at tjs that would have been like $18ish…
also i liked the wide range of faux meat toppings and veggie toppings at tjs, here they only have 1 faux meat so far (apple sausage or something) and not as many veggie toppings. its a pretty limited selection.
overall i’m glad there is still a vegan pizza place in boston but i think i liked tjs more
Hope more readers here have had a chance to come out and visit Peace o’ Pie. I’m one of the owners of the new shop, and I’ve been pleased by the turnout so far.
I’d like to respond to a couple of points Robert raised:
1) Regarding our prices, we use organic ingredients wherever feasible, we’ve staffed our restaurant with employees instead of trying to do it all ourselves, and at the same time we’re attempting to be financially successful in order for us to grow and to expand the public acceptance of vegan dining. So far, so good. For example, we have had quite a few non-vegans come through door who have been very impressed by our food (to say nothing of all the vegans who’ve been raving about it).
Also, my understanding is that you could not get 2 drinks, a pizza, and breadsticks (did they have breadsticks?) at TJs for $18ish. From what I’ve been told, their pizzas were almost as expensive as ours toward the end (not sure if this is true including toppings), and their pizzas were not made with the same attention to detail, the hand-tossing of doughs, the organic ingredients, and so on.
2) Point 2 ties into point 1. In addition to using mostly organic ingredients (*all* of our fresh produce, for example), at this time we use no frozen ingredients. From what I understand, the chik’n and possibly other ingredients used by TJ’s were frozen. When you have fresh ingredients, you simply need to keep the menu pared down in order to avoid too much costly spoilage (and we only use our ingredients for as long as they stay fresh).
We also wanted to keep things fairly minimalist, at least until we saw where the demand was. We do have some other signature pies in the works (two of which call for faux meats for the faux meat cravers), and those will be announced at our website, on our Facebook Fan Page, and on our Twitter account as they become available. As an aside, our signature pies are a great deal relative to building your own pie with the same ingredients.
We Americans are used to cheap fast food that isn’t good for us, and it’s true that POP offers less cheap, less fast food that is less bad for you. I can’t say that we’re ashamed of that, especially when it tastes so good! Fortunately, many people are coming back over and over again (we’ve had dozens of repeat customers these past two weeks we’ve been open), so I think we’ve hit on something here.
I realize $15 a person (half of a $30 meal) is pricey for a large number of people to afford too often, but don’t forget that two slices o’ the day and a drink is about $10, and that’s a pretty solid meal. You could even forgo the drink (have some water) and get a cookie for dessert, and you’re at around $9. Pretty good, in my opinion, and right in line with the cost to eat at a conventional, non-vegan, non-organic quick casual restaurant in Boston.
Thanks for giving Peace a chance!
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