I had a request from Valerie for places to find New York Style pizza in Portland, OR. I didn’t get the chance to do any research before she sent me an email telling me of a very cool Web page listing out pretty much every “pizza joint” in Portland. The site can be found at http://www.bizave.com/pizza.html. The site is put together by a guy named Andrew who apparently also has a talking swan.
New York Pizza Blog 
Here I am, live, reporting in from Portland, OR. I have tried and ranked several pizza places here. Here are my final ratings for these four pizza joints: Hot Lips: 80, Pizza Schmizza: 65, Old Town Pizza: 30, Vincente’s: 70.
Now, my personal reviews: Hot Lips was yummy and I would return. Nice shop, blah music, good raspberry soda with real raspberries, generic interior, similar to Fernandos in Aiken, SC. Employee gave a nice show throwing crust around. He probably watches the world pizza championships.
Vincentes was literally stinky. Almost smelled of sulfur. It is restaurant style with a real waitress. Great music – 80’s – punk? Punk looking employees, not very appetizing. I won’t return.
Pizza Schmizza is probably a chain. Decorations seemed like they were of a chain- restaurant theme nature. The service was fast; the re-heated slice, burnt. The Mont/Nev Big Dance game was on the TV, a plus. Good tunes, great tunes, in fact, Maybe from the 60’s. I would only go back if I was desperate for NY style pizza. It would suffice.
Old Town Pizza is adorable. It is in a historical building and has a nice story about the building’s history and it’s current haunts. I really enjoyed taking a break and eating there. However, it was not NY style pizza. It was more like a gourmet pizza. I could not buy a slice, I had to buy a small pie. And they didn’t call it a “pie”. I ate the whole thing and would return in a heartbeat, but would probably order something other than pizza. It is a “portland experience”, not a NY style pizza joint. Besides . . . there isn’t much else to do in downtown Portland.
Looking forward to another day . . . another pizza joint . . .
Visit my website to follow the adventures of my real talking Swan!
Rocco’s Pizza is total insanity. It’s authentic inasmuch as it’s a hot sloppy mess of a drunken punkrock slice. Not a great slice, but a great experience.
[…] The New York Pizza Finder has been updated to reflect some places in Portland. Thanks to Valerie, who visited 4 pizza places in 4 days while she was out there. You can view her comments on the Portland Pizza blog entry. […]
Hi!
I don’t know if you will ever be returning to Portland, or how much of a use our site is, but we’ve undertaken a review of Portland pizza.
http://portlandpizza.wordpress.com
Thanks for caring about pizza!!!!!!!
I have a few Portland pizza reviews.