Sunshine Pizza — Restaurant in Saint Helens

I am a restaurant operator out of Washington County who must still keep my dining room closed due to COVID-19. I have been traveling to neighboring counties and visiting restaurants that are open to see what systems they have implemented to maintain compliance with Governor Brown’s requirements, just looking for ideas for myself. My search brought me into Sunshine Pizza in St. Helens, and honestly I was blown away.

I own a pizza restaurant, I have worked in the pizza industry for 30 years, I have competed and served as a panel judge both on the national and international stage of pizza competitions. I have eaten thousands of different pizzas from all over the world. And today, the pizza I ate at Sunshine Pizza was one of the best pizzas I have ever eaten.

I had a small “sunshine deli” pizza on New York style crust. The sauce was good, an abundance of high quality ingredients (very good sausage), but what really stole the show was the crust. The pizza crust was light, airy, had a great crumb structure, easily digestible, and full of flavor. It was really, really good.

After I ate half the pizza I asked the staff member for a takeout box, which she got me. I intended on bringing the rest of the pizza home to my wife. Then I sat there and was working on some paperwork that I brought with me and decided I wanted one more slice of pizza…then another…and guess what I ate the whole thing. Sorry to waste one of your boxes.

As I drove over the hill and back to Washington County I kept thinking about that pizza crust. There is lots of good pizza out there. But what makes pizza great is when it creates a memorable culinary experience…and that is what your pizza did for me.

With my background, I know what I am tasting when I eat pizza. When I tasted that crust, I didn’t taste just water, flour, yeast, salt, sugar, and oil mixed in a Hobart, balled up and turned into pizza crust. I tasted very high quality flour, with a high level of hydration, a long fermentation process, a scientific approach with a true passion for their craft.

As a customer I had a great experience, but as an operator I was truly inspired. Just wanted to give you a shout out. I will post this on google...

Some of my favorite pizza I've ever eaten, really great and totally worth the slightly high prices. Why a 1 star review? Poor customer service. Multiple times we've ordered there and It's usually something small, instead of a side of ranch we got blue cheese, forgot the soda, whatever.

But one time we ordered when the pizza came it seemed awfully gappy. We pushed the slices together and there was clearly a pizza slice gap in the pizza no matter how we arranged them. It wasn't huge, but for the price they charge It's a little much to have them taking pieces out. But it gets even crazier.

We called them purely to let them know "Hey someone may have taken a slice out of our pizza, we just want to let you guys know that there's clearly a gap in our pizza just a heads up, we can send you a picture if you'd like." we weren't asking for a refund, we weren't asking for a free pizza, we were just wanting to let them know. The response we got was one of the rudest I've ever received "How do we know YOU didn't take the slice out of the pizza? I don't know what you want us to do about it."

We tried to deescalate the situation and eventually the lady asked for our number without explaining why and that was that.

It's unfortunate because It's great pizza and the owner is a...

My dautr n I went here for lunch abt 2p. Sweet girl was taking our order when an unpleasant woman came from the kitchen area and told my dautr her service dog must be kept on the floor. My dautr knows this as part of knowing the rules for a service dog. But it was her tone of voice that really upset me! My mother, in an angry moment, still had more kindness in her voice than this woman. I almost turned around at that moment, but my dautr loves the salad bar here. Wait, she wasn't done telling us what we MUST do! I went to pick up our plates for the salad bar and was told in that same nasty voice that we must wear gloves while serving at the salad bar. Now, I already new this, we had just been there 3 days earlier and I don't mind wearing the glove, it's a good thing. But the manner I was told was totally unacceptable. I was so mad my entire lunch was just ruined. I am a retired customer service trainer and I would never have had the woman on my team. Personally, I don't think additional training will help. You can't retrain a horrible, mean, nasty...