Fillmore – Montavilla News

In early February, Sleepover Pizza will open in the former Pie Spot storefront outside the Rocket Empire Machine food hall at 6935 NE Glisan Street. The new school pan pizza maker takes inspiration from Detroit and Sicilian styles, offering eight-by-ten-inch rectangular pies with classic flavors that aim to excite families and pizza lovers alike. The shop will expand into more adventurous menu offerings for its pizza Sunday brunch program.

Aaron Manter has called Montavilla his home for nearly a decade after relocating with his wife from Greenville, South Carolina, where they both ran a New American-style restaurant called The Owl. After closing that business, they eventually followed friends to Portland. Together, the couple managed the now-closed Fillmore coffee shop that Futura Coffee Roasters replaced in 2022. Aaron Manter went on to receive accolades for his following two positions: cooking at the 1905 Jazz Club and as executive chef for Scholar Restaurant on NE Broadway. Recently, Manter worked as a chef at Fressen Bakery down the street from this new location. Despite 25 years working in kitchens creating complex menus across various disciplines, pizza was where he started his culinary career, and it continually reemerged as a favorite dish. After experimenting with some popups hosted by Blank Slate Bar in June 2024, Aaron Manter was ready to become a restaurant owner again—however, this time in a smaller space with affordable rent and a more universally approachable menu.

Sleepover Pizza’s name and primary menu originate from Manter’s nostalgia for his time with friends growing up in South Florida. Some of his best memories stem from having people over while his parents were out, ordering a pan pizza, and staying up late watching a VHS tape of Predator. During that stage in life, he started cooking for Little Caesars at a time when the pizza chain made everything in the shop. Those foundational experiences linked cooking, friendship, and youth with pizza. Through this project, he wants to share that experience and those flavors with his community. “It’s really meant for people to grab a slice with the family and, like the name implies, bring it back home to eat while you watch a scary movie and hang out with kids,” said Manter.

When open, Sleepover Pizza will serve guests from noon to 8 p.m. Wednesday through Saturday from the standard menu, offering a classic cheese, pepperoni, or tomato pie with garlic and pecorino Romano. Manter plans to provide a rotating white sauce pie option, rounding out the main selection to four pizzas. All pies pull from the Detroit style, where the sauce is on top, and the cheese covers from edge to edge, giving it a pronounced caramelization where it meets the pan. To speed up the cooking process, he will pan-proof the crust to about an inch thick and then briefly bake it to set the dough ahead of a customer’s order. “I can’t ask people at a food pod to wait 20 minutes for a pizza. I just don’t feel like that’s realistic or right. Parbaking (partially cooking a bread product before fully baking it at a later time) lets us get that out in maybe ten minutes, and I didn’t find any decrease in quality,” said Manter.

_{Image by Audrey Willcox, courtesy Sleepover Pizza}

People can order a whole pie or a half as the by-the-slice option, and they will have an assortment of sodas. “I plan on doing a slice and a drink for 10 bucks. I’ll offer Coke, Diet Coke, and some sort of root beer. I think root beer and pepperoni are a very underrated combo,” explained Manter. He also intends to expand his drink offerings to meet his customer’s tastes. However, with Gigantic Brewing’s Robot Room adjacent to his space, he will keep to non-alcoholic options. Sleepover Pizza will be on some food delivery apps, and its sidewalk-adjacent location will make quick pickups easy for to-go orders.

*_{Pie Spot location closing sign directing people to visit them at 521 NE 24th Ave}*

Sleepover Pizza will also open on Sundays but targeting the brunch crowd, with hours from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. The menu will feature unique flavors inspired by traditionally un-pizza origins. Aaron Manter envisions a shakshuka pie made with Moroccan tomato sauce and a fried egg on top. Or, a lox bagel approach with cream cheese, smoked salmon, chives, capers, and pickled onions.

*_{The small kitchen space that will become Sleepover Pizza}*

The small kitchen space, not much larger than a shipping container, is nearly ready to reopen. Manter is only waiting on Multnomah County to approve the commercial kitchen. He explained that he has worked at eight different pizzerias over the years, learning all the best techniques to bring to his creations without losing the core qualities that make pizza great. “I’ve learned everything I can from every place I’ve worked, and I’m just trying to do a good job without being too cheffy, as it’s meant to feed the people and the families of the neighborhood.” Future customers waiting to try Montavilla’s newest pizza location should watch the Sleepover Pizza Instagram account to learn about the official opening date or visit the company website when it launches at sleepoverpizza.com.

Article and photos by

Jacob Loeb

Updated January 22nd, 2025: Add Pie Spot closing note image.

After six years serving the community from their cafe on NE Glisan Street, the owners of Fillmore coffee shop decided to close the physical store and embrace online coffee delivery. The pandemic closures and customer tensions stressed this early pioneer of Glisan street, forcing the family business to adapt. What had begun as a temporary financial bridge during the COVID-19 lockdown turned into the permeant path forward for the coffee company.

In June of 2015, when the Fillmore coffee shop opened at 7201 NE Glisan Street, there were few options like it on the street. The shop’s co-owner Tim Willcox perceived the lack of food services in the area as an opportunity to take his passion for coffee to the public and perhaps start a trend. “[I] saw a need for a community space on this stretch of Glisan. This was back when there was pretty much nothing happening aside from East Glisan Pizza. It was sort of a dead zone, and I think Fillmore helped to fuel some cool businesses developing in the area,” explained Willcox. Within a few years, bars, bakeries, and other dining options filled in around their shop.

Tim Willcox and his wife started the shop with a loan from his mother. For years, they struggled to build a stable business but saw success as others joined them on Glisan. Then COVID-19 brought that all to a halt. “We decided to cease our cafe operations due to the pandemic. Our sales had dropped nearly 80 percent in just a matter of days, and the lockdown on March 15th cemented our destiny. We had to let all of our staff go,” remembered Willcox. “Our only path to keeping the business alive was to start delivering bags of freshly roasted coffee to our customer’s doors.”

The roasted coffee delivery program kept them afloat until the cafe reopened in mid-May 2020. They served to-go orders through a plexiglass window with inside seating closed to the public. The business was nothing like before, and working in this reduced capacity stressed the staff. “Nobody was allowed inside the shop, and Monika was working her other full-time job while making all the food orders. Our daughter was doing remote learning on a laptop at the shop. It was a grind, to say the least. We managed to do this for a year until spring 2021,” explained Willcox.

After trying to make it work, it became apparent to Willcox that the new business model was not sustainable and no longer rewarding. “Things had just become too complicated and stressful with the pandemic, and while most of our customers were great and thankful about our safety protocols, we had to deal with quite a few people who were genuinely angry that they couldn’t come inside to order and hang out. We were screamed at and insulted by disgruntled customers.”

For the family business, it was time to move on from the cafe. However, Willcox did not want to give up on the delivery service. It is a way to keep roasting great coffee and remain connected to loyal customers. As an online-only business, Fillmore is still evolving, according to Willcox. “It’s still a work in progress. We’re building out a small Roastery and coffee lab. Things have been slower, yet still steady.” As the team builds onto the delivery business, they hope to gain a few wholesale customers and develop a nationwide mail-out service.

For Willcox, the transition to online coffee sales was the right choice for his family. “Right now, I’m happy with what we’re doing, and it gives me time to take my kid to and from school every day. It’s definitely less stressful.” If you miss your morning cup of Fillmore Coffee or want to try out one of their roasts, schedule a delivery online at orderfillmorecoffee.com