Pizzeria Leopold, the Lakewood pizzeria voted home to the best pizza in the Mile High City, has opened a second location in Colorado Springs — and it comes with a rooftop patio overlooking the mountains. The new spot sits in the historic Old Colorado City neighborhood, and it's already drawing a 4.7-star rating on Google along with lines out the door.
The expansion marks a new chapter for husband-and-wife owners Chris and Lindsay Lyons, who, according to the Denver Gazette named the restaurant after their oldest child, Leopold. The couple, who have four children together, run the business as a family operation that has grown from a single Lakewood storefront into a regional name. Their menu leans on sustainable, local, and organic ingredients alongside imported Italian products, a blend that has become something of a signature for the brand.
A Sandwich Menu That Rivals the Pizza
While Pizzeria Leopold is best known for its pies, the Gazette's report highlights a nine-item sandwich section the restaurant calls its sangwheech menu, with hot and cold options priced at $18 for a full sandwich and $11 for a half. The Italian hero, served on house-made focaccia, is loaded with ham, salami, capicola, Calabrese salami, provolone, tomatoes, lettuce, peperoncini, oregano, and red wine vinegar. A side of pasta salad runs $4.
The standout, per the same account, is the chicken parm sandwich — a house-breaded cutlet with fresh mozzarella, marinara, and parmesan, served not on a standard sub roll but on a panuozzo bun. That detail matters more than it might sound: panuozzo bread traces back to 1983 in Gragnano, near Naples, where pizzaiolo Giuseppe Mascolo first created the double-baked sandwich by stuffing wood-fired pizza dough with fillings, according to FermentoLab. It remains a recognized regional specialty in Campania rather than a generic deli roll.
From a 30-Year-Old Deli to a Statewide Title
Pizzeria Leopold wasn't always a pizzeria. Chris and Lindsay Lyons originally took over Deli Italia, a 30-year-old Italian market and sandwich shop at 1990 Wadsworth Blvd. in Lakewood, in 2018, according to Denver Westword. The business didn't take on its current name until August 2022, when the couple rebranded it after their son, who was born in 2020 just as pandemic indoor-dining restrictions were lifting.
Chris Lyons, a Colorado native who grew up in Germany, modeled the restaurant's crust and pizza style on childhood memories of Marino's Pizzeria in Schenectady, New York, blended with Lindsay's Italian-American roots near Boston, Westword reported. The result, as the owners describe it, is a custom hybrid rather than a strict Neapolitan or New York-style pie — and it paid off. In the 2025 Denver Gazette Pizza Bracket, a single-elimination tournament of 32 area pizzerias voted on by readers over five weeks, Pizzeria Leopold took the title with 57.5% of the final vote over runner-up CHAR Stone Fired Pizza, a Denver food trailer.
Getting there meant beating out serious competition. In the semifinal round, Pizzeria Leopold defeated Marco's Coal Fired Pizza — Colorado's only Neapolitan pizzeria certified by the Associazione Verace Pizza Napoletana, which enforces strict traditional preparation standards — by a decisive 69.3% of the vote. The pizzeria's Queen La-Meat-ah pie, made with red sauce, mozzarella, local Colorado sausage, sweet sopressata, calabrese, and pepperoni, was also named among the top 10 food bites in the Denver area in late 2024 by regional outlet DiningOut.
Growth Amid a Shifting Pizza Landscape
The Lakewood flagship, which now includes a small bar section alongside its pizza and sandwich offerings, has weathered its share of setbacks. In March 2024, a stolen vehicle crashed into a neighboring vape shop next door to Pizzeria Leopold's storefront, causing structural damage to the restaurant's building, Westword reported at the time.
That resilience stands out against a tougher backdrop for independent pizzerias across metro Denver. Hoodline reported that cult-favorite Pizzeria Lui closed last month after a decade at 5380 W. Mississippi Ave., part of a wave of rising operational costs forcing several longtime local establishments to shut down. Pizzeria Leopold's expansion south, rather than a retreat, comes as that churn continues to reshape the region's pizza scene.
Down in Colorado Springs, the new location's rooftop patio has become a draw of its own, offering mountain and sunset views over Old Colorado City, a historic commercial district known for its local dining and small businesses. The Gazette noted the location may come with a wait for a table given its early popularity, and it offers the same sandwiches and personal pizzas that built the Lakewood location's reputation.
