Edith’s Pizza

Edith’s Pizza in Bethesda has a lovely backstory. Salvadoran immigrant, Jose Molina, was a nineteen-year employee at forty-five-year-old Breads Unlimited before purchasing it in 2020. A year later, Molina took over a former Pilates studio a few storefronts away from Breads Unlimited, opening a pizzeria named after his wife, Edith.

Three items of note:

1. Sadly, the pathway to success in America is much narrower today for an immigrant than it was when Molina arrived from El Salvador in 1990. Today’s system is increasingly open to the wealthy and largely closed to the kind of working-class immigrant, like Jose, who builds a life gradually through hard work.
2. Opening a pizzeria in the middle of a worldwide pandemic took immense courage.
3. Not only is it unusual for a Latino to operate a pizzeria and a bakery, but Breads Unlimited, under Molina’s ownership, continues to serve the Jewish community with Challah for the Sabbath, babka, hamantaschen, and rugelach aplenty, and sweets for every holiday.¹

DishingPizza was predisposed to like Edith’s Pizza because of its backstory. However, the proof is in the pizza.

Though painful to write, there’s no point in hemming and hawing. Edith’s Pizza isn’t great. The pizza is smothered in a thick layer of oily, salty cheese, suffocating a decent, mild tomato sauce. Piling on even more, the cheese is so heavy that it causes crust floppiness in the middle, which is unacceptable, especially for a pizza baked in a steel-deck oven.

Before entirely writing off Edith’s Pizza, DishingPizza remembers Marlon Brando’s classic line from On the Waterfront – I coulda been a contender. Ditto for Edith’s Pizza. Jose Molina is, first and foremost, a baker. The Edith’s Pizza crust is a yeasty, chewy, hands-down marvel. The crust is so great that DisingPizza looks forward to the last third of the slice — the point at which the carb-averse may leave their crusts on the plate. This is a pizza that can be rehabilitated.

DishingPizza is loath to express an opinion, but will make an exception in this case. All Edith’s Pizza needs to do to achieve overall greatness is to follow DishingPizza‘s Pizza Improvement Plan™:

1. Use a higher-quality mozzarella with higher moisture and lower fat. Ideally, use fresh mozzarella.
2. Apply cheese with a lighter hand, which would offset the increased cost of more expensive mozzarella. Furthermore, allowing some tomato sauce to see the daylight would result in a more balanced pizza.

Edith’s Pizza and Breads Unlimited has achieved enough success that they’ve just opened another shop in Kensington.² The new location, called Breads Unlimited & Pizza, sits in a shopping center alongside Carmen’s Italian Ice and nearby BabyCat Brewery.³ Given his success, Molina has little reason to listen to DishingPizza‘s heartfelt advice. Nonetheless, C’mon Edith’s Pizza, just listen — you could be a contender.

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Edith’s Pizza
6910 Arlington Road, Bethesda, Maryland 20814

Breads Unlimited and Pizza
10303 Kensington Parkway, Kensington, Maryland 20895

Type: New York

Pizza quality: 🍕🍕
Overall experience: ⭐⭐

Pie (16″ round): $19.95
Pie price per square inch: $0.10

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1. Interestingly, Breads Unlimited never identified as a Jewish bakery, although its founders were Jewish and the bakery catered to Jewish holidays. ↩︎
2. The Kensington shop had its grand opening on April 11, 2026. ↩︎
3. Pizza, beer, and ice cream are DishingPizza‘s caloric nirvana. ↩︎