... AND DINING! Six-Person dinner, Portland's best pizza series. Ken's Artisan!

Hey fellow foodie, I just noticed this group has the phrase "and dining" in addition to the "cooking" part. So I am going to host a bunch of different restaurant series events, such as this pizza series, a food cart pod series, and after those are complete I will move on to other genres. Perhaps tacos, maybe ramen. how about desserts?

Since this is the kickoff invite, sorry, but that means this description might be looong. Let's also use the comments section for you to give opinion about restaurant themes? I'm going to hold off on "fine dining" for now to keep it a bit accessible, but we could do fine dining later. Do you have your own ideas but I'm too slow to turn them into reality? There are ways for you to become an organizer, you know.

What will be happening in this pizza series? Well, I'll start with three top pizza places, on Tuesday nights at 6:00 p.m., spaced one or two weeks apart. Did you know that Portland is now recognized as one of the top pizza destinations in the world? We are not here to decide who is the winner, but three of the most awarded and recognized Pizza destinations are Ken's artisan, Lovely's Fifty Fifty, and Apizza Scholls. I will extol the virtues and accolades of these restaurants in each individual invite. What about all the others? Patience, my friends. Gotta start somewhere!

This inaugural Pizza night will be at Ken's Artisan Pizza. What's so special about Ken's? Owner Ken Forkish makes wood-fired, Neapolitan-style pizzas with a focus on high-quality ingredients and a perfectly blistered crust. Among other pizza rankings, the somewhat dominant "50 Top Pizza" has put Ken's as high as fifth in the nation in recent rankings. You may also recognize the name from the same owner as Ken's Artisan Bread bakery. This is Pizza royalty in Portland. People usually expect to wait in line to get a table, so that's why we are going on Tuesdays. We can enjoy some pizza talk while waiting.

How will it work?! Typically we will order two large pizzas for six people, and perhaps 2 large salads to share. People will pay me with Venmo or PayPal or cash for 1/6 of the cost, plus your drink orders if any. Even Steven! and probably a bargain. It should be about 20 bucks with tip before drink orders.

"What if it's like 99° and we have to stand in line?" If it looks like it's going to be over 86° at 6:00 p.m. then we will postpone and reschedule. No one has ever accused me of being unreasonable. 😇

And that brings up an unfortunate point, these restaurants don't take reservations so that makes it impractical to seat more than six people for these dinners. So, I guess I can only invite five others to join me. So, if if for some reason this restaurant isn't new or exciting to you then please use some restraint and do not RSVP yes. Come to the next one!

And with only five seats available we are going to need to have a strict policy for confirming your RSVP. If I don't feel like you are double confirming then I may have to bump you. And if you are a ghosted no-show the consequences are dire. 😭

Did I forget anything? well, we are not going to be able to accommodate gluten insensitivity or full-blown veganism for this series, yet. We should be able to have some portion of the pizza be free of meat if need be.

Wish me luck with this new endeavor! and I wish you luck in procuring a seat.

Joe