Sauce Pizza dishes good pies and pastas at new Walnut Hill location in Dallas

Founded by restaurateur Sam Fox’s and his Fox Restaurant Group (The Henry, Flower Child, North Italia), Sauce Pizzaa + Wine is a from-scratch, fast-casual pizza joint that fires its hand-stretched dough in a hot, gas-fired ceramic oven that looks like every VPN oven you’ve ever seen but contains no wood.

Tucson-based Sauce Pizza has opened its third Dallas-area store at The Hill shopping center at Walnut Hill Lane and North Central Expressway. It’s worth checking out.

That’s okay, because these $10-ish pizzas hit all the right marks.

The dough is made fresh daily, the veggies are chopped fresh, and the ingredients are top quality. The 600 degree oven turns out chewy pies, cracker-crust thin pizzas and cauliflower-based gluten free options in about 5 minutes.

The pasta options are good, too – three plump meatballs atop corkscrew pasta tossed in red wine-spiked marinara, a terrific mac and cheese made with heavy cream and four cheeses.

Nothing here will break the bank, whether you opt for a pie, a salad or a glass of $8 wine.

The space is done up in candy apple reds, bright whites and dark blacks. You order at a counter then wait for your food to be delivered to your table.

QSR pizzas is a tough space to enter, but there’s a good chance Sauce Pizza + Wine can succeed. The staff were well-trained – incredibly friendly and helpful – and the food is better than it has to be. Other locations include Las Colinas and Prosper, and additional stores are planned for DFW.