Brown Dog Pizza: Telluride’s Award-Winning Slice

If you ask around Telluride where to eat pizza, Brown Dog comes up fast, and not because it is the only place in town with a pie. Co-owner Jeff “Smoke” Smokevitch, a Detroit native, put a square, cheese-edged Detroit-style pizza on a Colorado Avenue menu and then took it on the road. The restaurant, at 110 E Colorado Ave, is an easy walk from Unit 331 at Telluride Lodge on Pacific Avenue. It is the lunch stop already on our dining guide, and the awards are the reason the wait can feel worth it.

The shop started as Pacific Street Pizza and later moved onto Colorado Avenue, taking the Brown Dog name from the owners’ chocolate Labs. Counter service, a casual room, and a menu that still covers thinner crusts as well as the deep square pans. The pies that went to the shows are the Detroit ones: the 313 (Detroit’s area code), later the Via Italia 313, and a traditional-division winner called the Brooklyn Bridge.

The awards, in order

Smokevitch’s competition run is documented on Brown Dog’s own Pizza Champions page. In 2010 he studied at Tony Gemignani’s International School of Pizza, won the session’s best-pizza award, and later joined the World Pizza Champions team. His first International Pizza Expo, in Las Vegas in 2011, earned a sixth-place finish out of 65 with a pepperoni-and-mushroom Detroit square. That September, the 3-1-3 took second at the American Pizza Championships at the Orlando Pizza Show.

2012 was a building year: fifth in the pan division at the International Pizza Expo, then second in the U.S. and 13th in the world at the World Pizza Championship in Paris, a field of more than 500. In 2013 he entered a Classic Italian pie called Jack (Palisade pear, pancetta, Gorgonzola, pistachios, arugula) at the World Pizza Championships and placed 16th in the world and second in the U.S. in a Classic Italian field of more than 400.

The headline title came that same March in Las Vegas. At the International Pizza Expo, Smokevitch took first place in the pan competition with the 313. Brown Dog still bills it as the pie that made him a world champion, and it is on the menu in Telluride. In 2014 the shop repeated at the International Pizza Challenge, this time in the traditional division: pizza chefs Jose Suarez, Charley Rangel, and Mateo Lucas competed with Smokevitch as coach, and Suarez’s Detroit-style Brooklyn Bridge took first. First-place chefs are barred from entering again, which is why the kitchen sent the next crew.

What to order, and how to use a stay at 331

Start with the Detroit-style pan if that is why you walked over. The 313 is the one tied to the 2013 title. The Brooklyn Bridge is the 2014 traditional-division winner. If you want something lighter after a hike, they also bake thinner crusts; this is still a pizza shop, not a tasting-menu restaurant. Hours and the full menu live on browndogpizza.com. We do not take reservations for you, and competition nights in town (festivals, holidays) can back up the counter.

From Unit 331 it is a Main Street-direction walk: out to Colorado Avenue and a few blocks east to 110 E. Go for a late lunch if you want a quieter room, or make it the easy night you do not cook in the condo. Pair it with a slower first day if you have just arrived at 8,750 feet; a heavy pan pizza lands better after you have drunk some water and walked town, not straight off the gondola from Montrose.