Slices at Give Pizza a Chance

Image: Kim Nguyen
Just when we thought there were finally enough superior pizza joints in Portland, a tiny, unassuming, aluminum-sided lunch shack opens up, asking us to Give Pizza a Chance (as the portable pizza joint is called) one more time. And with good reason: it’s the only place we know of that actually makes whole-wheat crust the right way—as in crispy on the outside and chewy on the inside, with just a little more texture than most white-flour varieties. While a pizza house that serves something called a Compost Pie might sound a tad granola for downtown’s power lunchers, not ordering a slice would be a mistake. The Compost comes covered with seasonal veggies that can range from artichokes to acorn squash, and it’s slathered with a piquant tomato sauce. Even the quality of a simple margherita or a sausage-and-mushroom combo (there are usually eight to twelve kinds of pie per day) surpasses that of most pizza palaces in town. Bonus: the homemade sodas. We’re partial to the curiously flavored cucumber-lime, but the cherry-vanilla offers the perfect sweet chaser to a slice of spicy pepperoni.