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It’s not easy being a legacy pizzeria in Pizza Capitol Portland. With piping hot competition, it seems like every day an aspiring pizzaiolo is pushing another half-baked attempt out of the oven. Growing up here (as I did), you learn to appreciate staying power and consistency over the oven spring expansion of options.
American Dream Pizza and East Glisan Pizza Lounge have more in common than you might think. Both are vintage throwbacks to Old Portland. Both are iconic to their individual Northeast Portland neighborhoods. And both suddenly closed without warning and recently reopened with glow-ups.
At nearly 40 years old, American Dream Pizza is one of the oldest. Many longtime Portlanders grew up with this funky Portlandia alternative to Pizza Hut and Round Table. Until its sudden closure last July, I would call in for American Dream’s signature braided crust and party-cut pies—still delivered by staff, not DoorDash. After reading it was for sale, I even entertained fantasies of putting together an ownership group.
Amy and Dan Northrup felt the same. “The Dream was our favorite pizza place,” Amy says. “Dan and I have been eating there every couple of weeks since the early 2000s. When it closed without warning, we were heartbroken.”
Like me, the Northrups hoped someone more qualified would take it over. (“We kept waiting for someone, anyone, to reopen it. Nothing happened.”) Eventually, they got in touch with longtime friend Chris Pfeifer and actually started considering it. “Simply put, we just wanted our pizza back!” Amy says. “We did not want new. We wanted to carry on the tradition.”
Pfeifer turned out to be the secret sauce in taking on the revival project. Of all three native Oregonians, he was the only one with food and hospitality experience. The trio joined forces and reopened American Dream Pizza on June 24.
The hand-drawn art along the walls, custom neon in the window, ’70s resin tables, and customer-illustrated pizza boxes all remain, though the beloved Converse shoe mobile had already been removed after a shoe purportedly fell and landed in someone’s pizza.
They renamed the place “Original Dream Pizza” (the American Dream brand is also used by an independently owned location in Corvallis). “The name was less important to us than the 40-year legacy, a great location, the original phone number, and a loyal client base,” Amy says.
The house specials have been trimmed down to focus on build-your-own. “The Rat Pack” pie, with pepperoni, beef, mushroom, olive, extra cheese, has been renamed “The Galleria” ($24–$36) to reference Old Portland instead of vintage Hollywood.
Since Original Dream’s reopening, the Northrups have heard from friends who worked there in high school and families who dined there after giving birth to now fully grown children across the street at Providence Hospital.
“We have those memories too, as do our boys, now 19,” Amy says. “Original Dream Pizza is a new restaurant that is paying tribute to the past. It’s not going to be identical. We want to make it better.”
Roughly a mile east is East Glisan Pizza Lounge. The pizzeria opened in 2014, the same time I moved to the Montavilla neighborhood. It quickly became my new favorite. Its New York-style pizza was solid and the house combos consistently tasty, but the dimly lit tavern-style atmosphere with a full bar, kitschy art, and a TV that played only original Star Trek and Battlestar Galactica made it feel like home.
In 2015, East Glisan became one of the first places in Portland to introduce Detroit-style pizza. In a 2017 Willamette Week roundup of Detroit style, East Glisan ranked No. 1 and remains as good as or better than any in town. For 11 years, it’s arguably been Montavilla’s favorite restaurant, even inspiring a year-round beer from Montavilla Brew Works. Its sudden closure in April was met with shock and despair by the neighborhood.
“Everything blew up,” co-owner Kristin Brown says. “Friday morning, a family crisis came to a head. Saturday, we decided we just could not go on with things as they were—we had no more fight left in us. Sunday night, we closed.”
Unbeknownst to its fans, East Glisan had been struggling since 2019 with solvency problems and an internal company conflict that had been bubbling up under the surface like a molten core of scalding hot cheese.
The little neighborhood bar had ballooned into a restaurant with 22 employees, shrinking profits, and a dysfunctional culture magnified during the pandemic. “At the time, we honestly didn’t know whether or when we’d regroup and return,” Brown says. “An angry employee in a group text said the way we closed was a ‘complete flop in leadership.’” We’re like, um, yeah—no shit. But at the time we were not capable of anything else.”
But East Glisan did come back. The pizzeria reopened May 5 with a new staff and “nonnegotiables,” like prioritizing internal culture and employee feedback that previously was brushed aside leading to a series of resignations making service untenable. Some high-cost menu items, like the chickpea fritters, pepperoni bread and Sunday pasta service, had to go, while others were tightened up to promote orders to go and delivery, and nearly everything now has a vegan and gluten-free alternative.
East Glisan’s new chef, Adam Maxwell, previously ran Ranch Pizza’s Portland locations and notably opened San Francisco’s Cellarmaker House of Pizza, specializing in Detroit style. Maxwell’s changes may not be noticeable on the surface but in every bite are evident.
The N.Y.-style pie now has crustier skin with tessellated leopard spotting. The Detroit-style dough has an immaculate crumb and buttery chewiness with the most ornate crown of cheese frico. Even the marinara, properly dabbed on the Detroit-style pies, holds an extra bite of chile oil and numbingly zesty garlic that make the prospect of garnishing with chile flakes seem like overkill.
“Our first weeks back were full of hugs and tears—mostly ours—as regulars showed up with appreciation, enthusiasm and grace. We’ve been pretty transparent about what went down, how we failed ourselves and our team,” Brown adds. “The support has been encouraging and energizing.”
SEE IT: Original Dream Pizza, 4620 NE Glisan St., 503-230-0699, originaldreampizza.com. 11:30 am–8 pm Wednesday–Friday, 4–9 pm Saturday, 4–8 pm Sunday. East Glisan Pizza Lounge, 8001 NE Glisan St., 971-279-4273, eastglisan.com. 5–10 pm Thursday–Saturday, 5–9 pm Sunday–Monday.
