Timing a Tacoma Pie trek with Route 1’s evening schedule

Hello, thanks for checking out Transiterranean, a Tacoma-centric transit newsletter-blog exploring commuting, food, drink, and destinations across the City of Destiny, Puget Sound, and beyond! 

I’m Michael Grass, a former journalist and communications professional who has lived car-free for about 25 years, including in Washington, D.C., New York City, Seattle, Bellingham, and now Tacoma.  

Since moving to Tacoma, I’ve been slowly making sense of the local pizza landscape by perusing restaurant reviews, triangulating comment threads, and asking around. While I certainly like pizza, it’s not something I usually eat a lot of, so it’ll take some time to eat my way around town. Through my initial explorations, it’s clear there’s no shortage of pizza options in Tacoma and fortunately for those who live car-free, many of them are accessible via transit.

When I worked in various Washington, D.C. newsrooms, there was a time when I edited and contributed to local restaurant and dining coverage. I learned first hand just how much regional pizza style preferences, like barbecue, can be an exhausting, polarizing topic. The nation’s capital — unlike New York City; Chicago; New Haven, Connecticut; or even Old Forge, Pennsylvania — never developed a distinct homegrown pizza style of its own and borrowed traditions from other cities. At the time, a handful of highly reputable Neapolitan style pizza places opened up and some pizzerias twisted themselves into pretzels to secure a coveted Associazione Verace Pizza Napoletana certification, making D.C. a great destination for that style of wood-fired pizza in the U.S. 

Growing up in Michigan, there was a variety of pizza styles, including a Neapolitan-style wood fired a few doors down from the Chinese take-out I worked at in high school. But there was another familiar style of pizza, that was baked in a rectangular oiled sheet pan and cut into squares or rectangles, not triangular slices. I didn’t learn until long after I left Michigan that it was actually the underappreciated Detroit-style pizza, with its distinctive crispy and burnt cheese, aka frico, edge. I loved it as a kid and still do today.

Pizza from the Motor City has been certainly more recognized in the past 10–15 years in various cities across the U.S. In Seattle and its King County suburbs, there are now at least a dozen spots that serve Detroit-style pizza.

To the south in Tacoma, those searching for transit-accessible Detroit-style pizza can head out to Tacoma Pie via Pierce Transit’s Route 1 to 6th Avenue & Stevens Street. On its website, Tacoma Pie describes their pizza approach as “a mash up of many styles; namely Sicilian, Grandma, and Detroit Styles.” 

On Friday, my dining and transit-riding partner and I put in an order for La Casa, a specialty pizza with fennel sausage, sliced black olives, and chopped mushrooms.

As it happened, the Seattle Mariners were playing the Toronto Blue Jays in Game 5 of the American League Championship Series and Cal Raleigh’s sky-high 64th home run of the year was well-timed for enjoying the l Tacoma Pie’s delicious ceasar salad.  

Our La Casa pizza came out from Tacoma Pie’s kitchen just in time for Eugenio Suárez’s amazing home run in the 8th inning with bases loaded, which electrified the full house crowd in Tacoma Pie’s small dining room.

But there was a problem, but not with the pizza: Our rectangular pie arrived about 15 minutes before the next Route 1 bus. One of the challenges living car-free in Tacoma (and elsewhere), is that the realities of life don’t always align well with transit schedules. Although Route 1 is more frequent than most other Pierce Transit bus routes — with four buses per hour during middays and afternoons on weekdays — it’s not consistently frequent throughout the entire day. On weeknights departing the TCC Transit Center, Route 1 shifts to two buses per hour after 5:45 p.m.

This presented a logistical conundrum and choice to make: (1) Try to scarf down a few squares of pizza, pack up the rest, and skedaddle for the bus, or (2) savor the pizza but have a longer wait for a bus back home.

We decided to slow down and savor our pizza, along with the Mariners 6-2 victory over the Blue Jays in Game 5, before having the remaining pizza cuts boxed up for future enjoyment at home and lingering awhile for the next bus. (As Mariners fans surely know, the M’s lost Games 6 and 7 in the ALCS, dashing dreams of the World Series yet again.) 

So what can be learned from Friday’s transit outing to Tacoma Pie? 

(1) Tacoma Pie’s pizza is delicious to eat, especially when it’s fresh out of the oven and the frico is oh so crispy and wonderful. (It also reheats well.) I look forward to exploring more of their menu in the future. 

(2) It’d be nice if Pierce Transit’s highest-ridership bus route, Route 1, had additional evening frequency to better serve the 6th Avenue hospitality economy, including the Tacoma-area workers who power it. Given the high density of restaurants, bars, and nightlife destinations along the 6th Avenue corridor, there should be stronger transit service here to make not driving an easier and more appealing choice.

(3) If you happen to just miss a Route 1 bus while finishing a meal at Tacoma Pie, there are some pinball games right in front to pass the time.