Much Loved Ranch Pizza Pop-Up Will Open New Brick-And Mortar

Some of the best pizza in Portland will soon have a home of its own.

Ranch Pizza‘s Eric Wood and Richard Corey and have signed a lease on their own place in deep Northeast Portland at 1760 NE Dekum St., in the Woodlawn neighborhood that’s suddenly become one of the best food-and-drinking hoods in town. To open it, they’ve teamed with food-fixers Title Bout.

“It’s in the same building as Tamale Boy and Hi-Wheel, near Tough Luck,” says Wood. “We’re pretty excited to be in that neighborhood—it’s a nice fit, and there are a lot of families we hope to cater to.”

Ranch Pizza began as a delivery-only pop-up taking deep-dish pies to the beer bars of Division Street, where their thick-crust pizzas heavy-laden with meats and veg developed a cultish following. It was also one of the five food makers WW named one of the five best in a new world of fun, casual pop-ups.

But they stopped delivering on Division in December, announcing they would serve their pizza at Modest Mouse frontman Isaac Brock’s forthcoming bar Poison’s Rainbow. But that bar at 28th Avenue and Northeast Flanders—poised to open in early spring—will be 21-and-over, and will serve a cheaper, smaller, couples-sized version of Ranch’s huge and heavenly pies, which at only nine slices could feed four normal humans.

On Dekum, Ranch will hope to be all things to all people.

“At the new spot we’ll be doing a lot of the same thing we were doing with the pop-up,” say Wood. “A small menu of basic, classic and specialty pizzas available by the slice or the whole pie, for take-out or dine-in. The unique thing here is we’ll have [both] sizes of whole pies available.”

Ranch will also serve 4-6 taps of beer, accessibly priced wines and a “pizza-friendly cocktail menu,” which to Wood means negronis.

“We want to stick with some of the classics from the pop-up,” Wood says. “People know us for our  #4, the sausage with ricotta and hot peppers, and that’s sticking around. We’re gonna have the same pepperoni pie with a pile of pepperonis. That’s our schtick—we really pile on the toppings.”

But in vegan-happy Portland, they’ll also be taking on vegan pies—but rather than try to mess around with cashews they’ll make red pies stacked up with veggies like mushrooms, specialty olives, possibly pesto.

“We’re not really down with fake cheese,” Wood says.

They hope to open in July, but will be crowdfunding to make it happen—which mostly amounts to the weirdest amalgamation of prizes and advance orders we’ve yet encountered. A simple $10 gets you two slices and a Coke sometime this summer.

But for $60? You get a gallon of homemade ranch dressing (obviously a perfect Easter gift). $17 nets you a pizza hat, and $200 gives you a free slice of pizza every week of the year. Give them $665 and they’ll name the bathroom after you.

And for $9,500? They’ll tell you the recipe to their secret ranch dressing.