Drive (or even walk) too fast down Perkins Street in Jamaica Plain and you might just miss the small, unassuming brick storefront of Pizza Oggi. An offshoot of Prince Street Catering, Oggi came into existence when, on a whim, owner Steve Welch decided to branch out after 20 years in the catering business. "It started out as an idea and took on a life of its own," he says. Eleven months later, that gleam in Welch’s eye has become a tasty entry in Boston’s expanding gourmet-pizza-and-sandwich-shop line-up.

Oggi has a solid foundation on which to build — Welch and crew make their thin-crust pizzas with herb olive oil and cornmeal, which not only allows the dough to slide easily on the pizza pallets, but lends a smoky flavor to the crust as the meal is cooked on pizza stones. Add sausage, roasted red peppers, and onions ($9/10-inch; $13.50/14-inch), and you have a pie whose ingredients will complete you. The roasted peppers and caramelized onions are suitably sweet, providing a coy response to the hearty call of the spicy sliced sausage. The roasted-sweet-pineapple-with-smoked-ham-and-scallion pizza ($8.50/$13) conjures warming images of Hawaii. We were sweet on the roasted-jerk-chicken-with-roasted-red-pepper sandwich on focaccia bread, which comes with a side of potato salad ($5.50). Sliced white-meat chicken brings out the best in the jerk sauce, while lettuce, tomato, red peppers, and onions ensure that the tons of turmeric don’t get out of hand. If you’re tired of ordering generic chicken sandwiches at your local franchise, you’ll like this jerk.

Although Pizza Oggi’s menu is small, the shop offers daily specials (oggi is Italian for "today"), and Welch plans to expand the menu for the spring and summer. No doubt Oggi’s reputation will soon exceed the confines of its small, take-out-only space.

Pizza Oggi, located at 8 Perkins Street, in Jamaica Plain, is open Monday through Saturday, from 11:30 a.m. to 9:30 p.m. Call (617) 971-9797.