Dough Boy Pizza opens first location

A new pizza restaurant opened last month in Pizitz Food Hall.

Dough Boy Pizza, an innovative fast-casual pizza restaurant, was created by Chef Erica Barrett.

The location opened Aug. 6 inside The Pizitz Food Hall. Dough Boy and features  Neapolitan-style pizza, consisting of thin crust pizzas with mozzarella cheese and tomato sauce and featuring both traditional toppings (such as pepperoni and sausage) and non-traditional toppings (short rib with caramelized onions and crawfish).

The restaurant will also be technology driven. There will be no cashiers so customers will order directly from electronic kiosks and the entire restaurant will run on digital screens.

“With Dough Boy Pizza’s concept, we are looking to control labor and food costs with our technology focus,” said Barrett, who also owns SOCU Southern Kitchen & Oyster Bar in the Pizitz Food Hall. “This is perfect for the millennial who wants to grab their pizza and go – we wanted to build a restaurant of the future.”

The location is central to many of the city’s key destinations, including the Historic Theatre District, Railroad Park, Regions Field and UAB. The Pizitz is connected to the city’s past but alive with the energy of a reimagined downtown.

While creating SOCU in Birmingham, Barrett stumbled across a pizza oven and immediately thought about creating a pizza shop. After importing additional pizza ovens from Italy, she got inspired by the Italian way of making pizza (which will be evident with the authentic, imported Italian crust on the pizzas at Dough Boy).

Future plans for Dough Boy include creating an app and franchising the restaurant (while using the low start-up cost as a key selling point).

Barrett has gained national attention after being featured in Shark Tank and CNBC’s The Profit. She has also authored a cookbook, “Shuga & Seoul,”  which is a collection of sweet and soulful recipes from the depths of the South.

For more information, please visit instagram.com/officialdoughboypizza.