The Rock Wood Fired Pizza

I understand it's a pizza place, and we probably failed for not eating the pizza... But oh well.  We'll go back someday to try it, but at the time, we just wanted really good drinks and a burger so we stopped in for lunch.  The burgers weren't that great, especially for $10.  

Really, I just wanted a bucket of booze.... Which was fantastic.

But since we were starving and stopped in at random for lunch, I also started drinking on an empty stomach... So my boyfriend ordered the Rock Chips for an appetizer so I could cushion the liquor.  Well, that was a fail.  Some of the Rock Chips were really good.  They made me want to put a chipotle seasoning on potato chips at home.  But half of our basket had these chewy ones that just made me think they weren't cooked right.

I told our waitress and she said it happens because they're hand cut in the kitchen.  Awesome.  Doesn't mean you should serve them then, huh?  So the few Rock Chips that were cooked right were delicious, I guess.  And again, the burgers were so so.  They were greasy and seemed pretty cheap in the meat department (not seasoned well or cooked any better than a regular person could do at home).

But if you want a bucket of booze, maybe you can chance the food.  Or if they're ONLY good at pizza, you MUST order pizza.

This seemed like decent Oregon pizza with the novelty rock theme.  Someone decided to make Guitar Hero into a pizza chain.  

Crunchy outside, chewy inside crust.  Yeah!  Solid topping quality.  Good meat pizza.  I'd eat that again.  Specialty pizzas are curiously designed as a whole.  

I think I'm being harsh because one of the specialty pizzas sounded great, but ended up a sweet mess. Like you gonna get beetus eating pizza sweet.  It had  pineapple and then some chili sauce that was syrupy sweet.  Man, if that sauce was spicy rather than extra sweet we might have had a great pizza there.

Apps were just aiiight.    The breading to squid ratio on the calamari was off the charts.  Some mini calozone thingy was okay, garlic-y and possibly articoke bits in it.   Not bad.  

Service was good at the bar.   Maybe all you one star people should eat at the bar.

On the rock chart, I'd say this place was Aerosmith.  Non-offensive, but not the soul of the Rolling Stones or as glam as David Bowie.  Ya feel me?

Also no Bulleit anywhere in Oregon it seems.

I'm very picky about my pizza and I had read the Yelp reviews about this place which made me not want to go here, but it was late and I was hungry and in Gresham and thought I would give The Rock a try. I'm glad I did! :)

When we arrived, there wasn't a host/hostess there so we weren't sure if we should seat ourselves. After a little over a minute, a girl comes out and shows us to our seats. A few minutes later another girl comes out and asks us if it was our first time her and "gave us a tour" of the menu, talked about their Happy Hour specials, their "backstage pass" (free to sign up and be a part of, and you get additional happy hour benefits, etc.) and got our drink orders from us - she seemed very friendly. It did take a while to get our drinks, but that's fine - probably my biggest complaint, which is not bad. Might've taken.. around 10 minutes? I could be wrong - I wasn't counting. I just know that our appetizers came out before our drinks.

We all ordered personal size pizzas (9 inch) because they were on special for Happy Hour: $2 off. Average 9 incher is about $9.99. We all got vegetarian pizzas; not sure what they're called, but one of them was like a margherita pizza (with fresh tomatoes and basil) but had capers (supposed to come with meat, but I subbed for caramelized onions, yum!); another had mushrooms (tasted like they were soaked in wine or vermouth; very yummy!), garlic cloves, and blue cheese; and the other had bell peppers, olives, and mushrooms.

I was worried that my pizza wouldn't be big enough, but it was definitely filing! We all traded slices of our pizzas and all decided that this place was good. Most likely the best and only good place in Gresham to get good pizza. Also at Happy Hour, you're looking to spend $8-10 on a personal size pizza and most likely be full from it! We also shared a $4 appetizer (chips with spinach artichoke dip - very good and wayyy better than 4th street pub's spinach artichoke dip - bleh).

I'm hoping that I won't run into any problems that some of the other Yelpers wrote about in their reviews (like getting a cold burger, watery pizza, etc.) but my experience was great!
So give The Rock a try. I had a feeling before I went here that it was probably just whoever was working at the time, and I recently saw that The Rock was hiring for others at this location so maybe they booted out the bad servers/cooks and hired some better people? :)