Pizza is a staple that's ubiquitous throughout the United States, but it's still possible to make a pizza unique. If you run a local pizzeria, here are three ways that you can offer uniquely customized pizzas to your patrons -- and set your pizzeria apart from the competition by doing so.

1. Bake Crusts With Distinctive Flavors

Don't just use standard crusts that everyone can purchase wholesale, but instead make your own crusts. Making your own crusts will let you change up the flavors, and unique flavors can give your pizzas a distinctive base that no other pizzeria has. 

Plenty of pizza places have found that garlic bread and thin crust are popular options, but your pizzeria doesn't have to use just these variations. See what you and employees can create, and ask customers which of the new flavors they'd be interested in trying.

If you have a particularly popular crust variation, that variation could become what your pizzeria is famous for. Just keep the exact recipe for the crust secret, and no other nearby pizza place will be able to perfectly replicate your successful crust or claim to originally offer it.

2. Source Seasonal and Regional Toppings

To set your local pizzeria apart from national pizza chains, source seasonal or regional ingredients that the national chains don't carry. 

National chains will have trouble getting enough seasonal or regional ingredients for all of their pizza places, but you don't have that challenge as a local shop. You just need enough of a regional topping for your place, and that one topping could bring in customers for as long as you carry it.

3. Make Pictures Out of Toppings

Offer customers the option to have a picture made out of their pizza toppings. While this will create an uneven distribution of toppings on a pizza, both customers and employees will have fun creating different designs. Making a smiley face or picture of a birthday balloon are a couple of obvious options, but your customers and employees will likely come up with many others.

Using toppings to make pictures can be an especially effective way to market your pizzeria in today's digital age. Encourage employees to post photos of their pizza-topping pictures on social media, and have them tag your pizzeria in their posts. You could even have contests to see who creates and posts the most-liked topping picture and give a free pizza to the winner. Visit a place like Scittino's Italian Market Place today.