Virgilio's Pizza Challenge

There are 3 new pizza challenges at Virgilio's Pizzeria in Lakewood, Colorado. All 3 are one person challenges. All 3 are 28-inch pizzas. All 3 have two hour time frames. All 3 are delicious.

Jimmy is trying the Hugilio #1, an 11-pound monster of a pizza that has lots of meats, lots of veggies, and Jimmy's favorite: mushrooms. There's a huge bounty on the 1st person to eat it: $1000. Then the continuing prize is $200 and some other stuff.


I am attempting the Hugilio #3 which is a 5-pound 28" margarita pizza. It's 2.5 pounds of dough, 1 pound of sauce, and 1.5 pounds of fresh mozz, fresh tomatoes, and basil. Delicious!

The other challenge pizza is a 7 pound pepperoni.

The challenges at Virgilio's just launched a few days ago. Jimmy and I are the first to attempt. In fact, Virgilio only has one 28" pizza pan because he didn't expect two challengers at the same time.


Jimmy gets the pan, so he is the actual 1st person to attempt a challenge. His pizza took 15 minutes or so to make and bake. When it was put down on the table, it smelled so good! He starts. He gets out of the gate the way he always does: fast. The 11-pounder is cut in 8 big pieces. His plan is to take each piece by piece. Just eat. He's through one in 5 minutes. Two pieces in just over 10 minutes.

Mine coming out of the oven


My pie is getting close to being baked. Soon, finally I can go. At the beginning, it's hot. Make that HOT. But the sauce is unbelievable, the mozzarella is smooth, and the crust is thin and crunchy. Perfect.


We both keep going. A little under an hour in, Jimmy announces he's taking a little break. We know what that means. Yes, there's a two-hour time limit, but once you stop you will not be able to really start again. Jimmy gets a bit more down, but at a bit over an hour in he throws in the towel. He puts down just under 5 pieces of the 8. A bit over 6 1/2 pounds consumed.

When I see him stop, I start thinking that way too. Plus, I have to drive home so I don't want to be too food drunk. I stop too. 6 of the 8 pieces down. I do think I could have managed one more piece, but not both pieces that I had left. It was also a weird vibe there. I was pretty messy as usual (using my hands, so they were sauced-covered and I had sauce on my face) and like at the pizza challenge in Castle Rock the feeling was that was frowned upon. But whatever.

Recovery from this challenge is not about the food mass for me. At 3.75 pounds consumed, that's nothing to handle but the sodium content was out of bounds. In fact my lips were dry when I stopped eating. I was very thirsty last night after the challenge. I have needed to drink a lot today, and I anticipate I will drink a lot tomorrow as well.

But I'll definitely head back to Virgilio's soon.

This is a photo of the release form.


Jimmy's mother and sister look on.

Saucing up mine.

Jimmy early in the eat.