800 Degrees

At the very last minute, we decided to jump on the bandwagon and go see the They Might Be Giants/Jonathon Coulton concert at UCLA last night.  As coincidence would have it, our friends were also attending the concert so we vowed to meet for dinner first.  My friend is good at reading about new places and then actually going to them so we headed over to the brand new 800 Degrees Quick Service pizzeria in Westwood.

Contrary to my memories of other trips to Westwood, finding street parking for $1 an hour was not actually very difficult.  Just be sure to read the signs!  We parked and headed to the restaurant with a line trailing out the door.  We left a lot of time so we waited in that line. It was about 5:30pm.  By the time we left the restaurant around 6:45 (yeah so not so much QUICK) the line was even longer, down the street, past Peet's Coffee and all the way to the corner.

The concept is creative.  People pick one of three base pizzas--the margherita ($6), the bianca ($5), or the marinara ($5) and then for $1/topping (with a few exceptions) can add on whatever interests them from the vast toppings list or stick with the very basic.  By the time you get to the end of the line and pay for your pizzas and salads and drinks; the pizza is out of the oven and ready to eat. Now there's the challenge of finding a table and getting all your food there, but once done, it's time to dig in!

The pizzas are about the size of a large dinner plate and if you weren't that hungry, you could definitely share with one other person--especially if you stop in at the burrata bar or add on a salad.

I ended up order the margherita with only the addition of pepperdews which are like slightly more acidic sweet peppers (really good!).  So my pizza was basil, tomato sauce, fresh mozzarella, pepperdews, garlic and olive oil.  The pizza was really good. The dough is not crispy but instead a perfect kind of chewy.  It stood up pretty well to the toppings and the flavors were all there.

I also ordered from the burrata bar burrata with cherry tomatoes and pesto for another $5.  If you have never had burrata before I highly recommend it. It is a variety of fresh mozzarella that is creamier than the regular buffalo variety.  The cheese has a cream center that actually seems to flow out of it onto the plate. So good! Burrata can be found at stores like Bristol Farms for astronomical prices so you might as well get a $5 salad of it at 800 Degrees!

My husband ordered the marinara pizza that comes with sauce and herbs and no cheese as a base--you can of course add cheese on top them for $1 but he decided not to.  He said he didn't miss the cheese and enjoyed his pepperoni and bacon pie just as well.

There are a variety of salads and the burrata bar as far as sides all for about $5 each unless you get something special (like prosciutto).  They have sodas for $2 with unlimited refills and one of those new-fangled fancy touch-screen coke machines that you can use to make a variety of flavors on top of your favorite soda (like Cherry Coke Zero and Orange Mellow Yellow).  They also sell gelato if by some miracle you are still hungry enough for dessert when you are finished!

While the line was very long and the system doesn't seem as fine tuned as it could be, the resulting food is fantastic and I would say worth the wait.  Admittedly, they just opened a few weeks ago and $6 pizza is a great deal so these nearby college students are probably going to be crowding the place for a while.  When the major buzz dies down, or maybe on a weekday evening, I highly recommend stopping into Westwood for your own signature pie.





800 Degrees Pizza, Westwood Village
10889 Lindbrook Drive
Los Angeles, CA 90024
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