Grotto Pizza has quietly introduced a take and bake pizza.
The pizza chain’s Facebook page announced that the pizza is available at its new gift shop at 70 Rehoboth Avenue in the beach town’s First Street Station and at all is restaurants in Maryland and Delaware.
The gift shop also offers apparel, dog leashes, kids toys, hats and other merchandise.
According to a spokesperson, the bake at home cheese pizzas are partially baked, shrink wrapped, fast-frozen and boxed. Guests bake the pizzas in their home oven for 7 to 10 minutes at 450 degrees.
Grotto has about two dozen locations in Maryland, Delaware and Pennsylvania. The company its start in Rehoboth in 1960 and added locations over the years.
Grotto has seen some churn in northern Delaware, with closings in Middletown, Kirkwood Highway west of Wilmington, and Bear. Grotto later returned to Middletown with a new location. Grotto still has a Main Street location in Newark.
At the same time, the company has moved into all three of state’s counties and added a few restaurants in Maryland. Free State locations include Ocean City, a market it stayed out of for decades.
The take-home pizza market has not been especially popular on the East Coast. Washington State-based Papa Murphy’s offers freshly made take-home pizzas and is popular in the West and Midwest. Papa Murphy’s has 1,300 franchise locations.
Uno Pizzeria, which closed a location in Dover a few years ago, still offers a frozen deep dish take home pizza.
