Life of Pie, a new wood-fired pizza shop, just opened up on N Williams, and if you don’t have any lunch plans, here’s a good reason to give it a whirl: For a limited (and unspecified length of) time, they are offering an extended happy hour from 11 am-6 pm daily, wherein you can get one of their 11″ margherita pizzas for $5 (normal price is $10) and $3 draft beer and house wine. That’s a tempting enough point of entry for me, but if you need more intel:
It belongs to Jason Kallingal (his former joint was Paccini) and “pizzaiolo” Nick Burger. They have a Naples-originating Stefano Ferrara oven, which is a BFD, and inherited by former pizza-slinging tenant Oro di Napoli. And, the rest of their menu features a small handful each of apps (risotto croquettes, meatballs, cauliflower au gratin, $6-8); salads (7-9); and spaghetti ($6-8, with a gluten free pasta option for two bucks more). Their normally priced pies range from $9-12, with nothing too earth shattering in terms of experimental combos (that’s not a criticism, if it ain’t broke, etc), with the exception of a pie that combines spicy salami, peppers, goat cheese… and honey.
Portland has some great wood-fired pizza joints, but the more famous ones (Apizza Scholls, Ken’s), have prohibitive lines (I heard or read somewhere recently someone saying that Apizza Scholls isn’t a restaurant, it’s a day trip). I’m loyal to Pyro myself, which seems to dodge the most massive crowds by hiding out in a cart pod, though I think it’s on par with its more high-profile competitors. Then there are a lot of in-between places that are good but not usually madhouse—Firehouse, Via Tribunali, etc.
Poised as it is on one of the busiest new commercial corridors—right at the corner of Beech—this could easily go the hyped, crowded route or be a quieter addition to the neighborhood. Five bucks a margherita to find out.
- Life of Pie
- Looks legit.
Cibo on Division is pretty easy to get into and has Fancy Pizza.
I’ve been to Ken’s (once, though it was very good), and I still have never gone to Apizza Scholls, even though people say it’s well worth the wait.
I’m just not down for lines, basically ever. There’s so much good food in this town that there’s always somewhere nearly as good close by that won’t make me wait.
Guess what, if you have waits every single day? You need a bigger fucking restaurant or a second location. I’d say it seems really rude to deliberately make your customers wait like that… if there weren’t a baffling amount of Portlanders who seem to have no problem with it.
It’s probably already a Portlandia sketch, but I want to open a one-seat restaurant specializing in one particular Swedish dish. People would line up around the block and then convince themselves that waiting for an hour was both fun and part of the experience. I’d call the restaurant, “Stockholm Syndrome.”
You can make a reservation for Apizza Scholls on OpenTable. Or, just go on a Tuesday; I was there last night and there were plenty of empty tables.
Colin, I’m pretty sure that concept exists on SE Clinton down the block from the theater.
@D&W, I went to Broder Nord the other day, and I was amused to see how we all had conditioned ourselves to how Broder works, even though the new location is 2-3 times the size of Clinton St. There were 10 of us lined up outside at 8:50 am.
There are a million options for pizza, so I don’t wait for pizza. Country Cat is nearly as good as Screen Door and (amazingly!) takes brunch reservations. However, I don’t have a lot of options for Swedish hash and those pancake thinks with lemon curd, so every few months I’ll cop to waiting 10 minutes for Broder.
@ Community Callin
…or the whole street of Alberta. God forbid you want to eat something there between 2-4 pm.
Or the other few hours when places are open.
Hopefully everyone’s in line at Helser’s/Tin Shed/Salt and Straw and Pine State so I can have the new Bunk Bar all to myself.
Colin, I agree on the some-things-aren’t-worth-waiting-for principle. I ate at Jam once and absolutely can’t understand the constant brunch line. It was good. Fine. But there are a million places as good where I can get seated within ten minutes.