PORTLAND, Ore — March 9 is recognized as National Meatball Day. That may not mean much to some people, but it means a whole lot if you’re someone who built an entire restaurant around meatballs.
That’s what Adam Berger did when he opened 24th & Meatballs on the corner of Northeast 24th Avenue and Glisan Street back in 2012.
If you ask Berger what the keys are to making delicious meatballs, he’ll tell you it’s pretty simple.
“You get the best quality meat you can find. You add really good spices, some cheese, really good quality parmesan, and you mix it really lightly,” he said. “You don’t want to overwork it.”
Ten years later, his menu is still meatball heavy, with a variety of meaty balls including Italian, spicy pork, chicken parm and vegan. You can get those balls on a handful of different sandwiches, like “The Boss," which includes three Italian meatballs with tomato sauce, mozzarella and parmesan cheese.
There are also pasta plates with plenty of meatballs on them, like “The Kiss Goodbye," made of three chicken parmesan meatballs with pesto sauce and spaghetti.
And now, there’s another item on the 24th & Meatballs menu. Pizza!
In fact, adding pizza to the line-up last year led to a name change for the restaurant. It’s now 24th Pizza & Meatballs.
“Pizza’s really important,” said Berger. “With COVID and people not being allowed inside the restaurant, we realized we had space for the pizza oven we always wanted. So, we put it in, we launched pizza and it’s been great ever since.”
They have all the usual suspects on the pizza side of their new-look menu; from cheese and pepperoni to veggie and supreme.
But on this National Meatball Day, rest assured, the menu also includes a meatball pizza.
We stopped a handful of people outside the restaurant to give them a meatball slice and get their take on the pizza. The one-word description we heard the most? “Delicious!”
VIDEO PLAYLIST: KGW Sunrise