Pizza Casbah feeds authentic New Yorkstyle pizza to FoCo Be in the know.

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By Christian Arndt @csucollegian

Pizza Casbah has long been a staple for New York-style pizza near the Colorado State University campus as well as a popular local favorite.

Located at 126 W. Laurel St., Pizza Casbah was established by Deano Zahakis, a New York native who moved to Fort Collins in 1999. Shortly after, he and a friend founded Pizza Casbah, which has seen plenty of success and still going strong since its creation.

Peter Harvey, the current owner of Pizza Casbah, reflected on Zahakis’ creation of the pizzeria and what inspired him to construct it.

“He was trying to recreate the vibes when he would surf out in Long Island, where he would hit the pizza shops and arcades that were around there,” Harvey said.

Harvey takes great pride in how everything is prepared fresh and with care in-house — a process that has been set in place and respected since the creation of the establishment.

“Our main thing that I would like everyone to know is that everything is fresh here,” Harvey said. “ e dough is hand-thrown; we cook it on stone. We handchop all of our produce. All of our sauces are made fresh. We don’t buy anything and rip it open and pour it into a bucket. Everything is made from scratch here, which sets us apart from a lot of places.” e Pizza Casbah website even has a section on how to complete their challenge and what to consider — if you are up for it, of course. e rewards are the reimbursed $65 buy-in and well-deserved pizzaconsuming bragging rights.

Pizza Casbah is also home to one of the most notorious food challenges in Northern Colorado: the 30-inch pizza challenge, which originated back in 2011. You only have one hour to accomplish the challenge, you cannot leave your seat and you can do it with only one other person.

“It’s a 30-inch pizza with five different toppings that the customers have to choose,” Harvey said. “ ey have an hour to do it, and they have to eat the entire thing. We have had four groups accomplish it, and we’ve had hundreds try.” e episode featured three groups of people competing to see who can finish the challenge first — or at least eat as much of the pizza as possible.

Pizza Casbah was featured on the Food Network show “Outrageous Food” because of this challenge.

Pizza Casbah has won numerous awards spanning across over two decades of establishment, including NoCo’s Best 2021 for having the best pizza in Northern Colorado.

“We won best pizza through almost every single magazine or newspaper at some point throughout our 23 years of being here,” Harvey said. “Just recently, we did a Taste of Fort Collins competition with all the pizza places, where every pizza place submitted a pizza, and we ended up winning first place, which was a pretty cool move for us because it was based on taste, not votes.”

Along with a rich history, awards and a great pizza challenge, Pizza Casbah also outputs a great amount of involvement within the Fort Collins community.

“We do donations through CSU, the city, small nonprofit organizations,” Harvey said. “We will donate pizzas or gift cards towards any sort of cause that is local.”

Read the full version of this article at collegian.com.

Reach Christian Arndt at life @collegian.com.

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