Solstice Wood Fire Pizza & Bar — Restaurant in Hood River

My wife and I stopped here at about 7pm on a Saturday night and they were slammed. There was about a thirty minute wait time. No problem. We passed the time easily in the nearby Waterfront Park before getting a text from them letting us know a table was available. Our waitress Julene was excellent. Very friendly and very attentive, given how busy they were. She stopped by regularly to make sure we were good and didnt need for anything. We ordered the seasonal risotto and a special pizza. The pizza had figs and a cured pork of some kind whose name eludes me. Not pancetta or cappocollo, something else but it was quite good. The sweetness of the figs and the savory quality of the pork, with lightly cruncy arugula and lightly acidic balsamic vinegar really worked. Great flavors that all went well together. The risotto was also quite good, creamy and savory with mushrooms and cherry and pear tomatoes. The reason I am giving this review three stars instead of four or five is two-fold. First, the price. This place is very spendy. The cost out of my pocket, for a small pizza, one and a half drinks (more on that shortly) and a relatively small bowl of risotto was $63 including the tip. I feel that my wife and I, when our kid is with the grandparents for a night and we can step out, can have a dinner that is just as good for far less at many eateries in and around the Hood River Valley. I considered the food here to be good, quite good actually, but clearly below justifying the price in my opinion. If I could have named my price it would have been ten to fifteen less. The second reason for the three stars relates to what I said earlier about getting one and a half drinks. My wife got a cocktail made with rose wine which was quite nice and I ordered a hard cider and when they went to pour it for me the keg was almost empty. I was supposed to get ten ounces and got maybe four or five. No problem, as long as they dont charge me full price for it, right? They did. They offered me another cider and I declined since the one in the fresh keg didnt sound as interesting to me, but if I had said yes would they have charged me for one drink or two considering it would have been not quite one and a half? I suspect the latter. First-world problems, I know, but still just a tad disappointing. Nobody likes getting stiffed even if its accidental which I will give them the benefit of the doubt on. I come a bit short of saying I dont recommend this place. The food and service were quite good but a couple of other elements left me with a bad taste in my mouth. I am open to coming here again, hopefully with someone else with whom we can...

I took my daughters and I to this restaurant on a Sunday afternoon. The server was scattered brained. There was a large table that was sat before us so that might have contributed to that. When I ordered our food she ask “is that all you are going to order?” I ordered a pizza, truffle fries, a kids cheese pizza. Plenty of food for a mom and three kids. When ordering drinks, I asked if they had lemonade. She said yes but didn’t disclose that there is no kids lemonade or the cost of the lemonade being different than any other kids beverage. While we did enjoy our pizza and fries, we had to ask for refills for our drinks. We also asked for ranch which was not mentioned that there was a charge for that too. The ranch was good and I wouldn’t have mind paying more if they just said something about the up charge for lemonade and ranch. We also ordered the s’mores dessert. It was gross. Overly burnt. If three kids don’t want to eat it that says a lot. While we sat in the outdoor eating area, my 10 year old got stung by a yellow jack three times. A random server did ask if we wanted ice which I said yes. He brought a cup of ice but nothing to put it in and there was no one around to ask for a container of some sort to put the ice in so I just went and grabbed something by the prep area. Not once did our server ask us how the food was, how my daughter was doing or if there was anything else we needed. I had to stop her to get anything and she made it feel like an inconvenience. The looks she gave me was almost like a glare. I was nothing but polite until the very end when I spoke to the manager. I spoke with him after I paid my bill which I still left a tip. Not 20% but still something. He asked if we wanted a gift card but also didn’t seem interested in hearing about the complaint or ask how my daughter was doing after being stung. I rejected the gift card as we wouldn’t be going back there. If we would we would take a pizza to go or something. I just said I would be leaving my review on...

We returned to this restaurant with local friends after moving out of town. We were highly disappointed to discover all pizzas only come in personal size now. Which made sharing among a large group extremely difficult, and raised the price of an experience for a large group beyond what we really wanted to pay. Even the special “deep dish” pizza was TINY. Like the size of a snack pizza in the frozen food section. On top of that they sliced the things on a highly uneven manner. So one guy got a piece that was 70% of the pizza and the next guy got 20%. Which made splitting even more awkward. Also let’s be honest, the crunchy edges on a solstice pizza are not its best part, and now you just get more of that. And not even a dip for free like our new local thin crust pizza place where we live now….who also make a tasty honey/sesame edge. For less $$.

The waitress was abrupt, kinda rude, and generally gave the impression that we were wasting her time and she couldn’t be bothered with us. When we asked about splitting the deep dish in 6 pieces she didn’t bother to explain WHY that was a dumb idea, just rolled her eyes and said NO! Like we tried to be friendly, order in a timely fashion as we know they are a busy joint. But she was just never once nice to us! At one point we set aside the knife we got to cut our pizza into more slices so we could use it on our other pizzas. Well she reached over half the table leaning in my plate to snatch that away, so we had to use table knives.

The flavor combos are still spot on and lovely. But Seems like they’ve lost site of being a friendly pizza place, where friends can grab a pint and share a pizza. Instead it feels like a gourmet money grab where we each have to shell out $20-30 to end up with...