Restaurants in Eugene-Springfield-Lane County, OR - Roaring Rapids Pizza Company - a reflection of our Northwest suroundings.

It's a place with Rapids in the name ...and in the whole business model.

There's easy parking...the lot's so large you could ROAR your engine and the neighbors wouldn't notice.

There are Roaring Rapids in the front of the restaurant.

There are Roaring Rapids located outback that give the place its name.

There are Roaring Rapids inside.

There is rapid delivery to your home.

And rapid delivery to your table.

I walked briskly, passing the four huge eating rooms,

and chose a table outside beside our wonderful Willamette River.....

where I could hear those roaring rapids and have good sunlight for this picture:

But before I could sit and dig into those succulents, my pizza appeared....rapidly

I think you'd say.

I sat down and enjoyed the soothing sound of the Willamette racing by

at a leisurely August pace...just a wrought iron fence and a steep bank away.

Steve and Paul are grandsons of the original owner of this entertainment facility. Then called Pietro's Pizza Parlor it was part of an eventual 69 store regional pizza chain that was sold to Campbell Soup in 1973.

Pietro's began in an era (during my youth) when (at least here in the Northwest) pizza was always referred to as "pizza pie", was always served in a "pizza parlor" and was explicitly marketed with appropriate note given to its "foreign" (i.e. Italian) origin.

Pietro sounded Italian. The signage included a stylized image of an European chef.

Today we say "pizza place"....unless you are older than dirt and let that "parlor" word slip.

We now consider pizza as American as .... French fries.

The Pietro's building here was once out by the street ...the better to be seen by passers-by. Now the restaurant is as far across that giant parking lot from the roaring traffic as possible...the better to see and hear the water.

This was a fun place in the Pietro's days...always busy and bustling' It was once named Pietro's Gold Coast Pizza. It had a roaring twenties theme and may have been the busiest in the regional chain.

It was a forward-looking establishment. It featured a huge, rapidly revolving Merry-Go-Round...in an era before every pizza place realized the value of an indoor playground.

The Merry-Go-Round is still here.

Steve and Paul Roth bought the location, then remodeled and re-branded in 1999 and 2000. They have created a great community asset that reflects

the Northwest's outdoor surroundings.

Now you can bring your company, class or family celebration and enjoy the lodge-like decor of the main building all year round.

There are four huge eating areas. One can be closed from the rest.

In good weather you can reserve the tented eating area surrounded by green grass and placed within sound of the rushing rapids.

If you'd like to get even farther from the restaurant, you can reserve the newly remodeled group facility called the Camp Putt Clubhouse - formerly the rental building for the miniature golf park and - long ago - the original Pietro's Pizza Parlor.

Roaring Rapids Pizza Co