'ZA is Broad Ripple's newest pizza establishment, open since June. 'ZA is different than most other Broad Ripple pizza joints, serving up gourmet slices through the wee hours. It's right on the strip, handy for pub crawlers and people watchers. There's not much seating, but you can watch the action on Broad Ripple Avenue from the window counter seats.

For pizza by the slice, 'ZA's mainstay, you can choose the Slice of the Day (AKA pepperoni) for $4, or a Specialty Slice for $4.50. The Specialty Slice changes by the day of the week. We visited on a Wednesday, so the Specialty Slice was Nick the Greek, a mix of spinach, peppers, olives and feta. Fridays feature Porky's, a meat-lover's pizza with pepperoni, sausage, bacon, Canadian bacon and Andouille sausage. Saturday's specialty is Fresh from the Earth, a vegetarian slice geared to compensate for Porky's the night before. It has spinach, mushrooms, broccoli, tomatoes, red onions, artichoke hearts, red & green pepper and basil. It comes on a whole wheat crust and has a garlicky white sauce.

If you're willing to wait, you can have a pizza made to order. 'ZA offers ten specialty pies, or you can create your own. The price structure is simple - $10 for a ten-inch, $15 for a 14-inch and $20 for an 18-inch. Specialty pies are a little more.

We ordered two made-to-order pizzas - pepperoni and sausage, and the Goodfella. I also had a slice of Nick the Greek while we were waiting. The Goodfella has Italian sausage, Capicola (Italian salami), tomatoes, mushrooms and peppers with mozzarella and provolone cheeses and garlicky white sauce.

My Nick the Greek "appetizer" had very tasty toppings, but the sauce was sparse and the crust was tough. I chalked that up to the evils of reheating and anticipated better made-to-order crusts. Upon arrival, the pepperoni and sausage pie was also way too shy on sauce - it was almost nonexistent. The hand-pulled sausage crumbles were unobtrusively mild, not the fennel-laced hunks I crave. The made-to-order crust was better than the reheated, but still cardboardy, a big letdown given the fact that this was hand-tossed fresh dough. The Goodfella suffered the same crust deficiency as the pepperoni and sausage, but had a great blend of flavors. 'ZA seems to have specialty toppings figured out.

We were told that on a good night, 'ZA sells loads of slices. If that's any indication, 'ZA makes a welcome addition to Broad Ripple Avenue and the Broad Ripple pizza scene.