Rhode Island Reds - Thin Crust Delicious Pizza in Arty Up and Coming Hyattsville

The steamy D.C. weather finally took a break last week and the air cooled down, we decided to take an after work jaunt to Hyattsville to visit a relatively new pizza shop, Rhode Island Reds.  Windows down, we drove for several miles through Bloomingdale and Mt. Rainier to Hyattsville watching the sun set.  We arrived at Rhode Island Reds, a white painted industrial type building at a corner on Rt. 1 and were immediately warmed by the inviting atmosphere.  The atmosphere felt like a back street or even country café in Italy or Eastern Europe. The front portion of the restaurant is a small Italian cooking shop with cans of tomatoes, oils, vinegars, preserves, etc.  The back of the restaurant has a few booths, a few tables, some red paint and primary colored art on the walls.  The walls in the market portion of the restaurant had local fliers advertising various community happenings.  

Now, onto the food, which we loved as much as the atmosphere.  The menu consists mostly of sandwiches, salads and of course, delicious thin-crust pizza.  We ordered a vegetable salad that was bright and colorful and covered with tasty oil-red wine vinegar vinaigrette.  We also tried two different pizzas, the Gina Lolabrigida a classic tomato, mozzarella, and garlic pizza and the Broforino, a delicious garlic pesto onion sauced pizza with anchovies and fresh tomatoes.  Both pizzas were simply delicious, classic, fresh flavors and thin crisp crusts.  All of the pizzas are an eminently reasonable $10 a pop, including ‘make your own’, which we will probably try next time.  Washed down with a glass of house red wine, the dinner was delicious and in our humble opinion rivaled fancier pizza places downtown and the feeling of being in another country-side world made it worth the trip.