Restaurants in Springfield

At Cozmic Pizza, the culinary team kneads organic flour made from local Willamette Valley wheat into crusts that are brushed with buttery extra-virgin olive oil. Then, they pile on toppings and set the pies to bake on 600-degree stones. The list of toppings—many of which are also organic, such as the apples and cilantro—breaks traditional pizza boundaries by including unique options such as smoked oysters, kale, and vegetarian meats, which offer an alternative to the eatery’s local sausage, smoked pork, and pepperoni.

These Jersey-Eugene-style fusion pies are the brainchild of Kirk Giudici, also the founder of Rising Moon Organics. When Kirk decided to embark on a second organic foods endeavor by opening a pizzeria, he found himself drawn to a vintage 1945 building that was an Edsel car dealership back when man didn’t travel only by hovercraft. While renovating the 4,000-square-foot auto display room, the same environmental principles that led Kirk to organics undergirded his decorating approach of using only recycled and repurposed materials. As a result, diners sip their homemade fountain sodas and Oregonian microbrews while perched at a bar made from a shuffleboard and lit with dryer-drum light fixtures from Kirk’s Laundromat.

The restaurant space, massive enough to have once housed a fleet of automobiles, enabled Kirk and his partner Alec to create a stage dubbed The Edsel, which has attracted national acts such as Michelle Shocked, The Be Good Tanyas, and eight-time Grammy Award winner Marcia Ball. In addition to musical acts, the pizzeria’s calendar is full of events such as Science Pub, when tipplers learn about topics such as why it’s impossible to teleport your clothes along with your body. Cozmic Pizza also engages in regular charity efforts such as a fundraiser for Greenhill Humane Society that caught the attention of KMTR.

When brothers Omer and Dave Orian moved to America after spending some of their childhood in Belgium, they started to dream about opening a shop that served the Liège-style waffles. Today the curly-haired duo—dubbed “Eugene’s Waffle Imperialists” by the Eugene Daily News—prepares their yeasted waffles across two Eugene locations.

To make Liège waffles, the brothers fold Belgium-imported pearl sugar into a brioche-like yeasted dough, caramelizing the batter in a cast-iron waffle maker before it’s crowned with sweet and savory toppings, like the goat cheese, avocado, and eggs of the shop’s Goat in Headlights waffle. The menu also includes sweet waffles, such as The Ol’ Banana Split. For the adventurous eater, try an “In-between” waffle like The Sweet Funk Machine, with pear, gorgonzola, cinnamon, and wildflower honey. Omelets, salads, and organic coffee round out the menu.

Pier Sushi's expert sushi chef coils up 23 specialty rolls and an assemblage of Asian entrees, festooning plates with artistic arrays. With no MSG, masago, peanuts, or peanut oil in any of its platters, Pier's menu offerings draw instead upon sesame and soybean oils. Sake and Japanese beers complement meals, cooling down throats more effectively than bowties sculpted from ice.

Jung's Mongolian Grill inspires culinary creativity with a family-friendly buffet of stir-fry ingredients and sauces. Guests can load bowls with a menagerie of vegetables, meats, and noodles before handing custom blends to the grill-masters. Staff members then toss and serve edible opuses, permitting patrons to take home their leftovers if they don't return for seconds or anger the door guard by snapping his fake beard. Alternately, diners can rebuild and revise all-you-can-eat concoctions until stomachs replace growls with thankful purrs. The grill battles cravings from 11:30 a.m. until 4 p.m. for lunch and from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. for dinner, elongating its hours to 10 p.m. on Friday and Saturday.

Under new ownership, Chen's Happy Garden’s chefs serve robust portions of Mandarin- and Cantonese-style dishes. Diners can start with an appetizer such as pot stickers, ideal for sharing among eight friends or ambassadors from each planet in the solar system. The mandarin steak's beef comes accompanied by bok choy, pea pods, and a spicy sauce. Vegetable-based and low-calorie entrees, including the braised bean cake with vegetables, satisfy herbivorous appetites. Combination dinners allow guests to sample several items—the #3 combo congregates pork chow mein, pork fried rice, sweet-and-sour chicken, and a crab puff into one dinner, as well as soup, hot tea, and a fortune cookie that tests the reliability of aging magic 8 balls.

Sol Picante espouses itself as a family establishment since its expansive menu of fajitas, burritos, and enchiladas urges communal feasting. The familial tradition continues with the eatery’s recipes, which have passed through multiple generations to inform ample combination platters, seafood dishes dotted with prawns, and hefty burritos filled with chorizo, cheese, and guacamole. To finish things off, the wait staff mixes white russians, shirley temples, and tequila-spiked coffee, just like Grandma used to make.