A big pizza pie that’s amore

“We wanted to make pizza, but the restaurant was small, and we found this place,’’ said Cole.

At first, the operation was half of its current size and open only in the evening. Then, in June, when the coffee shop next door closed, it took over the whole building and expanded hours to include lunch and dinner.

We’ve had the pizza several times — sitting out front on warm summer nights, inside at one of a few tables, or perched along a communal window seat, and as take-away.

I’ve liked them every time — there are a dozen named pizzas, including a standard cheese ($9), the Margherita made with fresh mozzarella ($11), the Caramia with delicious sweet sausage ($15), and the house specialty, the Riva ($17), topped with goat cheese and braised short ribs (a take-off on one of the restaurant’s popular dishes).

The pizzas are thin, but not too thin, and very, very delicious. Every time.

And if one of the specialty pies isn’t to your liking, you can customize your pie with any of 25 toppings (one topping for $9, 2 toppings for $11, three toppings for $13). The pies are all one large size — at least 14 inches.

The deli also offers salads and sandwiches.

The sandwiches are big to enormous, and the ingredients are fresh and plentiful — which can, sometimes, be a bad thing: A few of the sandwiches have too many ingredients to deliver one focused flavor punch, but this is a problem of riches. And one that Cole has anticipated by offering the same choice he does with the pizzas: You can create your own sandwich from a list of a dozen ingredients — (all the usual meats plus a host of good things, like bacon, pancetta, caramelized onions, and pesto) and the kitchen will make it.

I like the house-roasted chicken in the Catania sandwich ($9) — which also includes pancetta, pesto, thick slices of fresh mozzarella, and roasted peppers. (Next time I’ll order one with just chicken, pesto, and tomato.)

The Palermo ($9) is another good one, with sliced turkey breast, applewood smoked bacon, sun-dried tomato aioli, Bibb lettuce, fresh mozzarella, and sliced tomato.

The choice of breads here is key. Unless they’ve run out, Riva’s ciabatta is fantastic — and a far cry from the standard sub rolls that the pizzeria also uses.