Description
The vegan restaurant Boxcar Pizza serves Detroit-style pizza in the food hall of The Zipper, a mixed-use development on Sandy Boulevard in the northeast Portland part of Portland, Oregon's Kerns neighborhood. Pizza ingredients include coconut oil-based mozzarella, seitan bacon, gluten-free soy curl chicken, and vegetable protein sausage, as well as blue cheese and ricotta made with tofu. [1]
The cheeseburger pizza has cheddar and mozzarella, cherry tomatoes, pickles, red onion, and burger sauce. [2] The Ape Dos Mil has red sauce, basil, mozzarella, and parmesan. [3] The Bianca has Good Planet mozzarella, an Italian sauce with fennel, and tofu-based ricotta. [4] [5] The Green Supreme has red sauce, Mama Lil's hot peppers, and kale, and the Jimmy Pesto Special is a tribute to the Italian restaurant owner on the animated sitcom Bob's Burgers with cheddar, mozzarella, jalapeños, pesto, vegetable protein "pepperoni", and hot agave syrup. [6] The Steaky Break Heart has steak, cheddar, mozzarella, pickled red onions, and a cilantro lime aioli. [3] The Strings of Nashville has vegan Nashville hot chicken nuggets, pickles, and ranch. [7] Boxcar has gluten-free and "alternative diet" options. [8]
The restaurant's seating capacity is approximately 100 people (which was reduced to approximately 40 people during the pandemic because of social distancing requirements. [9] Boxcar's logo depicts Homer, the owner's Australian Cattle Dog. [1]
History
Odie O'Connor opened Boxcar in August 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic. [1] [10] [11] Boxcar has been described as a Portland's first vegan Detroit-style pizzeria [12] and a "sister" establishment to O'Connor's defunct restaurant Baby Blue Pizza, [2] which closed in 2022. [13] In 2023, Eater Portland said Baby Blue sometimes appears as a pop-up at Boxcar. [14]
In April 2021, Boxcar closed for a weekend after a couple refused to wear face masks. [15] [16] For Pizza Week in 2023, the restaurant served a special called the Birria Pie, which had a plant-based birria, cheddar, mozzarella, cilantro, onion, and a side of consommé. [17] For the same promotion in 2024, Boxcar served a special pizza called the Smash or Pass, which had vegan beef, cheddar, mozzarella, lettuce, onion, sesame seeds, and burger sauce. [18]
Reception
Boxcar was nominated for best pizzeria by VegNews . [19] The business ranked third in the Best Vegan Pizzeria category of the magazine's annual Restaurant Awards in 2024. [20] Tasting Table included Boxcar in a 2024 list of the 24 "top-rated" restaurants for vegan pizza in the U.S. [21]
In her 2020 review for the Portland Mercury , Suzette Smith wrote, "The crust at Boxcar (I got the regular, not the gluten-free) is a pillowy delight, but perhaps not crunchy enough to rival the true Detroit pizza crust. To be honest, that feels like the best of both worlds. Boxcar started as Detroit-style pizza, but landed on a cloud of puffy crust that is perfectly wonderful in its own right." [22] Katherine Chew Hamilton and Karen Brooks included Boxcar in Portland Monthly 's 2021 overview of the city's best new vegan restaurants, food carts, and pop-ups. [2] Boxcar was also included in The Oregonian 's 2022 list of Portland's ten best new "pandemic-time" pizzerias. [6]
Waz Wu included Boxcar in Eater Portland's 2021 list of the city's "exciting" new vegan and vegetarian restaurants and 2023 overview of the city's "knockout" vegan pizza. [12] [14] Brenna Houck included the business in the website's 2025 list of Portland's eighteen best vegan and vegetarian restaurants. [4] Boxcar was a runner-up in the Best Pizza category of Willamette Week 's annual 'Best of Portland' readers' poll in 2024. [23] Krista Garcia included the business in The Infatuation 's 2024 overview of Portland's best pizza. [24] Boxcar was included in a Yelp list of Portland's ten best vegan eateries in 2025. [25]
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