Ye Olde Pizza Shoppe

What is a more quintessential college-town restaurant than a pizza parlor? When I was in high school and dreamt of college, I would picture myself and a group of friends, studying diligently and eating the ultimate college brain food: pizza. Oddly enough, I can count how many times I have participated in study groups on one hand. As for pizza, I have only had it delivered once, and it didn’t end well; the deliveryman did not appreciate that I was unsure of my on campus address!

           

Vegetarian Pizza at Ye Olde

Regardless, I still consume pizza regularly, and I firmly believe that pizza is a staple food for college students. Newberg has many pizza joints: Abby’s, Domino’s, Papa Murphy’s, Little Caesar’s, and my new favorite, Ye Olde Pizza Shoppe. Now, perhaps Ye Olde is my favorite pizza shop because it is a local restaurant, and I tend to have an aversion to chain restaurants. Or, maybe it is my favorite because Ye Olde has been feeding George Fox University’s students’ appetites since 1976. Even my best friend’s mom remembers eating at Ye Olde when she was a student at George Fox! But I think more than anything, I adore Ye Olde Pizza Shoppe because they make all their pizzas from scratch—dough and sauce included—and they simply taste great! 

          

While at Ye Olde, try the Newberg Delight pizza, topped with mushrooms, olives, and sausage. Or, if you are a meat lover, try the Pizza Shoppe Special with salami, pepperoni, Canadian bacon, mushrooms, olives, sausage, and beef. Another one of my favorites is the taco pizza.

But Ye Olde doesn’t just dish up delicious pizza, they also serve burgers, salads, and 15 different sandwiches! In addition to enjoying your pizza in their quaint shop, you can also take your pizza to go or have it delivered on campus—just make sure you know your address! If you are looking to save money, pick up your pizza and bake it at home for $1.00 off the menu price.

 Taco Pizza at Ye Olde

Ye Olde is located at 2515 Portland Rd, and is easy to spot due to its castle-like façade. Inside the restaurant are cozy booths, flat screens, and even a coat of arms on the wall. It the perfect place to go with a group of friends due its loud, fun atmosphere.

Ye Olde Pizza Shoppe is open Monday through Saturday, 11am–9pm, and Sunday, 12pm–8pm. Take advantage of their lunch special offered daily from 11–3:00, which consists of a mini pizza, salad, and drink for only $7.00. Ye Olde also gives their customers a free mini pizza on their birthday!

What a Tasty Weekend to Start my Blog!

Hello everyone! Where to begin...I have never blogged before...but here it goes:

This weekend has been awesome and it is still only Saturday afternoon ! My wonderful roommate Lydia and I decided to get the heck out of Newberg this weekend and spend the night in the BIG CITY! We headed to Portland to to spend the night in my parents new eclectic weekender apartment, have girl time, and eat to our hearts content!

We kicked off our night by heading to HotLips Pizza in the Pearl. We had never been there but had always been enticed by this local pizza store with the big red lips! We both ordered a slice of the daily Veggie pizza that had: Green chili, peppers, mushrooms, feta + cilantro pesto. We also ordered a honkin' garlic breadstick (that we split), and each had a raspberry HotLips soda. The breadstick was kind of "gooey," and I wouldn't order it again, but the pizza and the soda were amazing! The pizza was very fresh tasting and semi-spicy, but if I HAD to choose I would say the raspberry soda was my favorite part of the whole meal! I was expecting an average "raspberry flavored" soda like all other raspberry sodas, but no, this one was in a completely different realm! It actually tasted like raspberries, you know, like the ones you would pick right off the bush! It even had raspberry pulp floating around it for crying-out-loud (which is, in my opinion, a very good thing)! Its amazing flavor is most likely caused by the fact that it only contains four ingredients: Carbonated water, Willamette Valley raspberries, cane sugar, organic lemon juice! I was craving another raspberry soda only minutes after finishing the first bottle!

Of course we couldn't stop there so--after a little shopping--we hit up a cozy place I have been wanting to go: The Tea Zone. It is a very quaint little store that has a wonderfully vast tea menu. They often have live music and movie nights. After being quite intimidated by the lengthy menu we settled on familiar favorites: I had a caffeine-free chai, and Lydia had cinnamon spice tea latte. They each came in a precious glass cup complete with an additional tea tea pot for each of us filled with more creamy-delicious tea with tons of foam (the best part, Lydia says).  We got out of there spending about $4 each and we even had a to-go cup full of tea that we couldn't finish (which we reheated the next morning for breakfast)! 

Now what girls night on the town would be complete without dessert? Certainly not Lydia's and my girls night out. After much brainstorming and debating about where to go for dessert we decided to go to the Heathman Hotel for some of their famous treats. After coming in and feeling slightly under-dressed and awkward for having the restaurant host offer to take our Powell's Bags to hang up in the coat closet, we finally got seated and ordered some fine desserts. We were informed that The Heathman is one of few hotel restaurants in downtown Portland that can boast about having their very own pastry chef. Lydia ordered the Tarte Tartin, which is a French caramelized upside down apple tart. She said it was great, but what was most impressive was the beautiful sugar design that was placed on top of the whole thing. I chose to be what some might call "boring" and go for the Creme Brulee, which is one of my all-time favorite desserts. It was prepared wonderfully and had a very authentic vanilla flavor, complete with visible vanilla seeds.

After all this taste-bud stimulation we decided to call it a night and walk back to the apartment for a movie and some well-needed rest, because the next morning we had to get up early for the Chocolate Festival!