Portland Can Rave About its Pizzerias, Says Augusto Beato

Augusto Beato, CEO of Portland SEO, said that Portland pizza lovers benefit from increased competition among the city's pizza restaurants that leads to better quality across the board.

"If someone doesn’t like the products of a particular pizzeria, they could always find their favorite pizza somewhere else in town," said Beato.

Portland is home to countless pizzerias now—giving options for all kinds of palates, whether it be a pizza's style or toppings.

Apizza Scholls founder Brian Spangler remembers quite a few self-anointed 'critics' absolutely hating his pleasantly charred pies at first.

"It was really rough in the early years," explains Spangler. "We had a lot of angry customers telling us they didn't like our pizza because it was 'burnt,' didn't have enough cheese or toppings, and was too expensive."

It was, says Spangler, as if the average consumer had been trained to think the correct level of baking a pizza is to make it golden brown.

Award-winning author/restaurateur Ken Forkish, owner of Ken's Artisan Pizza, applied this recipe for thin-crusted pizza and later upped his game by using mozzarella that's hand-stretched in-house daily, a core menu that changes seasonally and dough that's still in the midst of a fermentation makeover.

On the other hand, Baby Doll Pizza of Chef Travis Miranda gave Portlanders the choice of ordering pizza by the slice. "There were only a few truly good pizza shops in Portland six years ago, and even fewer featuring pizza by the slice," explains Miranda. "I wanted to make a great NYC-style pizza—one I was familiar with, but even better than the basic slices you find on every corner."