Here’s an easy Friend Test for you: ask if they’d like to drive an hour each way to try a new pizza place.
If the answer is a resounding “Yes!,” great news, your friends are awesome.
If the answer is, “Oh, Babette’s Artisan Breads? I’ve read that they’ve moved from Denver to Longmont and their pizza is supposed to be wonderful,” then your friends are probably Linda and Tony. Consider yourself lucky.

Babette’s pizza surpasses the rumors. The crust is possibly the best I’ve ever tried. I ordered the special: a breakfast pizza with egg on top. Tony’s sausage pizza, Dan’s pepperoni, and Linda’s white pizza with prosciutto were equally worth the drive.

Babette’s also boasts artisan breads and pastries. Half of this photo came home with us:

After dinner, we took a stroll around the Prospect New Town area of Longmont, the self-proclaimed “Coolest Neighborhood in America” and a jaw-dropping blend of architectural styles.

We finished our “quick jaunt for pizza” with a visit to Cheese Importers. It’s not much to look at from the outside, but the inside is teeming with the largest variety of cheeses I’ve ever seen, in their own enormous and refrigerated cheese cave, plus more French paraphernalia than you can shake a stick at. (A bit more about Cheese Importers here.)

Longmont. Who knew?