Trendy Pizza

Dallas-based pizza chain gets on board with hot and cheesy national trend

Pie Five Pizza has a vegan cheese option that can be ordered on any of its pizzas.

Photo courtesy of Pie Five Pizza

Dallas-based Pie Five Pizza is getting on board with one of the biggest restaurant trends of 2016: vegan dining. The company is adding a vegan cheese option made by pioneer Daiya, to serve at all Pie Five restaurants nationwide.

Called Daiya Classic Blend Shreds, it's a blend of mozzarella and cheddar vegan shredded cheese, like nothing offered at other chains. It does what most people want cheese to do on a pizza: It melts and stretches to create a gooey, rich topping, just like dairy-based cheese.

The cheese blend is soy-free, gluten-free, dairy-free, tree-nut free, plant-based, lactose-free, and vegan.

Patty Scheibmeir, VP of research and development and product innovation at Pie Five, says that guests were requesting it, and that Daiya was the best dairy-free alternative.

"The thing about Daiya's cheese is that it worked well with our current oven settings, and it works with all of our pizza crusts," she says. "It cooks perfectly, with a beautiful stretchiness. With some of the vegan cheeses we tried, they came out looking like burnt marshmallow. Daiya was the only one tested that looked and tasted good."

Three out of four of Pie Five's crusts are vegan: artisan thin, whole-grain Neapolitan, and gluten-free. (The pan crust has milk protein and is therefore not vegan.)

"Those have always been vegan," she says. "We don't have egg in any of our crusts."

Pie Five is a spin-off of Pizza Inn that specializes in customized personal pizzas. It is named for the amount of time it takes to get your pizza made to order: five minutes. Toppings include upscale options such as spinach, artichoke hearts, caramelized onions, and three kinds of olives. Fresh vegetables are prepped at each store.

The first Pie Five opened in Fort Worth in 2011; there are now 87 locations in 24 states.

Five of Pie Five's seven sauces are vegan, including Tuscan marinara, spicy marinara, barbecue, olive oil, and olive oil with garlic. (The Alfredo and ranch sauces have milk.) That allows customers to create an entirely vegan pie.

"The vegan trend is expanding," Scheibmeir says. "We hear it from young people, women, millennials, and we're working on more options."

Daiya Classic Blend Shreds will be available at every Pie Five location by the end of March.

pizza

Ice Cream News

Global gourmet ice cream chain debuts in U.S. with 2 Dallas-area shops

Dumont Ice Cream

An ice cream concept from India has made its U.S. debut, right here in Texas: Called Dumont Creamery & Cafe, it's an ice cream chain founded in Hyderabad that now has two locations in the Dallas area.

Their first location was Frisco, which opened at 1951 FM 423 at the end of 2023; a second location opened in late October in Coppell at 1535 S. Belt Line Rd. #160.

Dumont was founded in 1999 by brothers Vivek and Bhashkaar, and currently has 23 locations in Hyderabad, Bengaluru, and Vijayawada listed on their website.

Bringing the concept to Texas are local franchisees and friends Sai Sashank and Tarang Tirumala, who moved to the U.S. in 2005 to attend college.

Both have successful consulting careers, but craved a taste of home.

Ice cream is the centerpiece at Dumont with more than two dozen flavors, ranging from gourmet to classics to flavors boasting global influences: from Italian-inspired sorbet to a New Zealand-inspired honey ice cream called "hokey pokey."

There is vanilla, chocolate, and mint chocolate chip — but also unique options such as cake and jam, an ice cream with a vanilla base, bites of cake, and spiced jam; and kheer, a coconut ice cream studded with dried fruits and nuts — a nod to the kheer rice pudding that's one of India's favorite desserts.

A single scoop is $4. They have cups and a cute version of waffle cones: shorter and fatter than usual, to provide a greater ratio of ice cream-to-cone.

In addition to ice cream, they have a beverage program with coffee and espresso drinks such as lattes, plus boba tea. There are also special drinks like falooda — an exotic Indian milkshake with rose syrup and vermicelli — as well as limited-edition drinks like iced kheer, a cool beverage version of that same popular rice pudding dessert.

Both locations are spacious, bright, and clean, with pale green banquettes at Frisco, and pale blue chairs and tables at Coppell. Both feature an astronaut theme with statues and framed photos and cartoons on the wall. The Coppell location also has a mural dedicated to great moments in Coppell history.