New Cascadia Traditional — Restaurant in Portland

I used to love this place, and it still makes awesome bread and bagels. However, it really needs to expand its pizza options. It used to be that you could go here and get a small pizza with fixings on it for about $8 and there was another size. We'd buy a couple, sometimes 3, for under $30. We loved the flexibility those smaller sizes allowed. It was on the thin side but a delight. Now, the pizza is just not the same. Sauce and a couple options for over $30! That's ridiculous. It's dough, sauce, and limited veggies. Those cost $1 per topping if added when most pizzas come with one or two toppings at that price. Substitute cheese more. I'm looking at over $35 to get something that is not as good as the older versions. I understand that this is a small bakery, with a small staff, but I'd even be ok with a frozen pizza from there with toppings that I have to heat up. It's hard but doable to buy the crust and make your own. If you want to try that option, look into how paratha is made, which involves folding and kneading the dough to create air bubbles. It seems like this place has a lot of possibility though, so I'm going to hope for better. I always have liked the people who worked there. That's not the issue.

The goodies taste good here. I often wonder if less sugar would be an option though. When the frosting is the size of the muffin, that's too much and exceeds some American establishments. GF shouldn't mean unhealthy. This place has so much potential to rock the Portland area, but it hasn't been delivering for a while. It's not the pandemic. That part I understand.

Like I said, I still love their bread and that there is a place to grab bagels and a goody, but other than than, this restaurant needs to work on its menu. Sad, because I miss good pizza. I look forward to changes in the menu so I can return to one of Portland's only restaurants to offer a pizza I can eat. In fact, it was...

I (Celiac) went to the pizza pop-up a few weeks ago with my boyfriend (no allergies/intolerance) and waited to post a review after receiving food poisoning here.

Ordered two pizzas, and garlic knots at 4:47PM for carry out with a wait time of 30 minutes. When I arrived the place was pretty empty and I was told the order would be ready at 5:23, I did not get called to pickup my order until 5:37.

To be more exact, I watched the front call my name, then immediately give the pizza to another table (who ordered a few minutes ago from the same person) as I was walking up to the counter. I waited at the counter for several minutes before being acknowledged. When the front of house acknowledged me they said someone picked up my order, gave me one of the returned open pizzas from said customer, and told me to wait while blaming the customer for taking the pizza they handed them lol. After I expressed I didn't want to wait for the second pizza and garlic knots, a replacement pizza from someone else's order was given to me.

However, the main reason for this review is that pizzas were overly underwhelming compared to when I used to come here circa 2017 - 2020. The lack of competition can be noticed through the years. While Truffle Bianco pizza had some flavor, the BiancaNeve pizza tasted like cardboard, and is nowhere near to justifying the price of $34.00 for a 16oz pizza. Costco frozen GF pizza has more flavor than what I had, and I felt cheated out of my GF money.

Not planning on coming back, and I recommend purchasing Caputo gluten free flour (wheat starch) and making your own pizza if you don’t know where to eat gluten free pizza.

I was going to give 2 stars because the baguettes and challah/holladay bread are good, but dropped it to 1 star after my boyfriend and I got food...

New Cascadia is seriously heaven sent. Sometimes there are lines. And you can hear it in everyone's voices, how happy they are to be able to buy some well made gluten free foods for once.

Gluten free baking is tricky. I make my own blends, and have to keep about 20 different types of flours/starches in the home to make that possible. And I lack the ovens to make what they make. Most store bought stuff has the cheapest flours/blends, because it's not cheap to mass produce foods for a niche market. So I get pretty excited, that New Cascadia seems to walk an tight line of upping production enough to stock nearby markets and multiple locations, while still keeping complex blends/processes, and not charging even more than they do. Yeah, it's spendy. But it's spendy to make.

I hope they're able to maintain costs for now, because I worry about pandemic trickle impacts for stock. But da@@it, I'm happy to be munching on bread that tastes like bread for once!

Also, bless their staff for not rolling their eyes at all the customers constantly talking about bread like it's a life altering experience. I wouldn't blame them for it growing 'stale', but they seem to get it and maybe even appreciate being there for the experience.

My only complaint--I wish they had a better system for large orders. They don't do ahead of time orders for many things, and sometimes their entire stock of pastries is ordered by a single call ahead of yours. I wish they limited call orders to a certain qty, and had a system for ahead of time orders beyond that qty. But as of now, they don't. And man, that was heart breaking... after a rough surgery, I had my heart set on just one donut! Boxes and boxes of them on the outgoing order shelf, but none to buy....