A very special delivery from a bachelor

Liz Kellermeyer

If Mark Huebner got booted from The Bachelorette, it's only because Jillian never got to try one of his Cripple Creek pizzas.We did yesterday, and the meat-heavy pie (sausage, pepperoni, Genoa salami) on an ideal crust was a big hit. "Not too thick, not too thin," Huebner says of the crust -- and the women of Westword were saying the same of this "pizza entrepreneur," as he was billed on The Bachelorette.

A native of Chicago -- where he worked in a pizza shop when he was growing up -- Huebner came here to attend the University of Colorado, and stayed on after graduation. He loves Colorado, but for one thing. "I couldn't find great pie in Denver," he says. "I've been suffering for eight years."

So finally, earlier this month he opened his own shop, the Denver Pizza Company, in a tiny storefront at 309 West 11th Avenue, just two blocks away from our office, in the pizza-deprived Golden Triangle. It's take-out and delivery only, and while the specialty Cripple Creek pizza is pricy -- $17 for a medium, 14-inch z-- Huebner promises "specials and stuff" every day, with deals for volume.

Welcome to the neighborhood.