Pizza hours: Monday—Thursday 4:00pm—10:00pm, Friday—Sunday 11:00am—10:00pm
Food: 
La Grande Orange Pizzeria has by far my favorite pizza in Phoenix. The style of pizza is what I’d call gourmet. This isn’t arcade, creepy stuffed mouse, screaming kids’ pizza… I think you get my drift! This is quality toppings, sourdough crispy crust pizza! Much more my speed! That doesn’t mean it isn’t kid-friendly. At our most recent visit, a young girl sitting at a table next to us seemed to be enjoying her cheese pizza just fine! I will be honest and say that we tend to not be overly adventurous when we go here; we’ve stuck to the same order for the last two years. Hey, sometimes you just get comfortable!
We always start with an order of their baked chicken wings (6 wings for $7 or 12 wings for $13). These wings are my favorite in town. Are you sensing a theme here? A lot of favorites! The wings are not fried like a typical buffalo wing. I believe they are first baked and then grilled. They have a delicious barbeque sauce that has just enough spice to make the Point Reyes blue cheese useful! These are messy, not-first-date kind of wings! Once we dig into them we find that we have nothing further to conversate about… more important tasks are at hand.
The pizza is up next, and it does not disappoint. We order the classic Margherita, but we add prosciutto to that (pizza is $13; prosciutto is an extra $3). The pizzas are meant to serve two people and are plenty big to share when we get the wings. The crust is sourdough, nice and charred. It has a good crunch but not so much that it is like a cracker. The pizza is topped with roasted tomatoes, house-made mozzarella, and fresh basil. Their mozzarella is awesome, and if I can be sly I usually steal a tomato or two off my husband’s side! The prosciutto unfortunately can be hit or miss. Sometimes it is nice and soft, but on our last trip it was pretty thick and dried out. It didn’t keep us from cleaning our plates, but it was a little bit of a let down on an otherwise awesome pizza.
Their pizza sauce is a wonderful addition to this pizza, as the Margherita traditionally comes only with olive oil brushed on the crust. When you request a side of pizza sauce it comes to the table hot, which is a great touch. The sauce is rich and has chunks of tomatoes and onions. I slather the top of my piece with the sauce and then dab on Sriracha.
Service:
Service here is always friendly. I feel like the wait staff has a good handle on balancing checking in while not hovering. Drinks are refilled quickly, and our waitress even offered one for the road. The entire wait staff seemed to help out each other, which I feel made for smoother service. They pay attention to little details, like picking up straw wrappers or empty sugar packets on the way by the table.
It should be noted that before 4:00PM, you have to place your order at the counter next door at La Grande Orange Grocery and then seat yourself in the restaurant area. When your pizza is done they call your name and you go up and grab it yourself. After 4:00 the restaurant is full service; you are seated and a waiter or waitress comes to you.
Accessibility:
The worst part of accessibility here is parking. The parking lot is horribly small for such a busy restaurant. There are two handicap spots, but you have to be awfully lucky to be able to use one. La Grande Orange does offer free valet, which may be a good option for most people. Unfortunately, due to my hand controls, valet doesn’t work for me. We actually used to only get their pizza to go because parking is such a hassle.
Once you are in the restaurant, accessibility is hit or miss. If you go during lunch hours, when it is counter service, you might struggle with accessibility. The counter where you order is in the adjoining grocery store, which is very tightly packed with goods (yummy specialty foods and wines), so it is very hard to maneuver. I prefer to go during the full service hours to avoid the hassle of the grocery side. There are a lot of tables packed into the restaurant, so if it is full and the only table available is in the back, I usually have to ask people to stand up or scoot their chairs up so I can squeeze by.
The good thing is most of the seating is table or half booth/half table. There are only a few full booths. That means I can sit at almost any of the tables. Booths are just too difficult with my wheelchair. I have to sit at the end which doesn’t always work if the benches are too close to one another. Plus it means I stick out into the walkway, and I have had many visions of a server tripping over my chair while carrying a huge tray of food. That would be ugly! There is a bar area that isn’t accessible due to its height, but the ratio of accessible tables to not accessible tables is definitely in my favor!
Overall:
La Grande Orange Pizzeria is always delicious and rarely lets us down. The food is fresh and made from quality ingredients for a reasonable price. The service is friendly and consistent. The accessibility, while not perfect, is definitely good and workable. In the end, I always take two things into consideration; would I return for another meal and would I recommend this establishment to a friend. I answer an enthusiastic “yep” to both of those questions!
There are nice, big slices of garlic in that pizza sauce, too. Yum!
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