Jan. 20, 2021

At Monks Ale House, pizza crust is seen as a blank canvas.

“We’ve done all kinds of crazy pizzas over the years,” said owner Justin Henrichsen, who also has Independent Ale House in Rapid City. “Some of them worked. Some haven’t.”

That creativity in the kitchen will be apparent now that the craft beer bar on East Eighth Street started serving pizza this week.

Bob’s Popper has ranch sauce, jalapeno, bacon, cheese, cream cheese and raspberry preserves.

The Mashed Potato Pizza has red mashed potatoes, bacon, green onion, cheese, garlic and sour cream.

The Hasselhoff has ketchup, mustard, cheddar cheese, hamburger, onion, tomato and pickles.

“The beauty of pizza is it’s basically a blank canvas that you can do anything you want with,” Henrichsen said. The recipes are endless, “so we’ll probably start messing with the menu in the next couple of weeks.”

He bought Monks last year in May, while it was temporarily closed because of the pandemic, and went to work remodeling it. The bar at 420 E. Eighth St. opened in August with 50 tap lines. Phase two was building a kitchen, and again, Henrichsen did most of the work himself.

One wall is covered with a mural by local artist Rory Cowger.

“I love his artwork. Kitchens are always so like industrial spaces, but part of my thing is let’s put some art in it, let’s hang beer signs, let’s make it feel like it’s an enjoyable space to be in.”

The kitchen crew is running the new stone deck pizza ovens at 625 degrees, kicking out pizzas in five to six minutes. They come in one size: about 9-inches-by-14-inches.

“We’ll always have a feature pizza going once we get up and running, and they change everywhere from sometimes we’ll run it a week and sometimes we’ll, like our heirloom tomato pizza out in Rapid, that usually runs for about a month.”

There’s a gluten-free crust too, but Henrichsen wants diners to know that “we don’t clean our surfaces in between, so somebody that’s super sensitive, we’re not compatible in that way.”

The menu includes three salads.

Takeout and curbside pickup are available, and customers can get 32-ounce crowlers of beer to go. Monks is not teaming up with any third-party delivery services because it wants to keep control over the quality of the pizzas.

While Monks is open later, pizza is served from 3 to 9 p.m. Monday through Thursday, noon to 10 p.m. Friday and Saturday, and noon to 8 p.m. Sunday.