After a long day of shopping and running errands around town, my husband and I, and a car load of random children realized it was getting awfully close to supper time, and we had not thawed anything out at the house, and there was no way these kids were going to behave much longer, so going out for dinner was not a great option either.
While we were debating all of our old stand-bys, I remembered a co-worker talking about this take and bake pizza place. A quick text to her and we were headed to Papa Murphy’s. Now what I expected was to walk in, pick out a pre-made pizza from some sort of refrigerated unit, pay and go home to cook it. That is not at all how it worked. My husband and I went in alone, and like I said, I thought we were picking from pies that were on ice waiting for us to arrive.
The staff was very friendly. And after we deliberated the menu for much longer than an experienced customer would, we ordered three pizzas: cheese for the kids, Murphy’s Combo for the man (without olives) and the Herb Chicken Mediterranean for me. We stepped back and watched the team go to work. If you’ve never been, it’s more like a Subway, only for pizzas. Maybe ten minutes after placing our order, they called our name. Apparently it was obvious this was our first time, and the gentleman at the end of the counter explained the baking process to me. 
Feeling confident in our supper decision, we headed home to heat the oven. The nice thing about take and bake is you don’t have to smell the hot pizza all the way home, and you also don’t have to come up with a story as to why there is just one piece missing. We made it home, and two of our pies needed to sit at room temperature for a bit for the crust to rise. Turns out that time passes perfectly if you drink a cold beer on the deck while you wait, and the oven also reaches the magic baking temperature. We cooked the cheese first, then the combo pizza, and finally the Mediterranean. Prior to putting them in, I thought there wasn’t enough cheese to melt right, but resisted the urge to add more. Turns out the folks at Papa Murphy’s know a little more about building pizzas than I do.
The cheese pizza was devoured, the combo was mostly devoured and we had the bulk of the Mediterranean left over, which I was able to take to work for lunch the next day. While not as yummy as fresh baked, the pizza did reheat nicely.
Overall, I recommend Papa Murphy’s. I like the concept of take and bake. Next time I will call my order in first and go through the drive through.
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