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Everyone thinks of the beginning of the school year as the perfect time to create new family dinner traditions, but summertime is actually a great time to savor this time too!
Everyone is out of school, there are no homework assignments to do, and the days are longer with more sunlight in the evening. That all makes for a great opportunity to spend time together around the dinner table. Our favorite meal for family dinners is always pizza. No disrespect to other cuisines, but pizza is where it’s at… and everyone LOVES it!
We set off last week for a fun dinner at Zpizza in Laguna Beach. Zpizza is the first artisan inspired pizza chain started in Laguna Beach nearly 30 years ago. Recognized for its high quality ingredients, Zpizza offers a wide variety of brick-oven baked pizzas, sandwiches, and fresh salads. Vegan and gluten-free pizzas are also available, and Maddie and I really loved the vegan pizza. Pete and the other girls had the other ones and thought they were amazing too!
Zpizza has some of the friendliest staff and they had this awesome party spread set up for us. But even the non party tables feel like party tables at Zpizza. It has a great relaxed beachy vibe that makes it a perfect choice for families wanting to spend some time together… or, you can even get your pizza and the rest of your meal to go!
Since I grew up in Orange County, I’ve been eating at Zpizza for years. In fact, it has been a trusted name for delicious and better for you family meals for over 30 years now! They also recently announced an exciting new partnership with non-profit, The Family Dinner Project.
The Family Dinner Project hosts community dinners across the country for underserved families, spotlighting the proven benefits of coming together around the table as a family for meals, and they provide free conversation starters, and fun games to make mealtime memorable.
Aside from hugs and kisses, we love games and talking about our day at dinner, although sometimes it can be a challenge getting the conversation started. That is why these games are so awesome. We have found that by playing some of the games at dinner it gets the fun started and makes everyone more open to having real family discussions.
From games to the conversation starters is how to get kids talking!
While we were talking and playing the games, we all enjoyed some appetizer salads and a hummus plate. I wasn’t sure that we were going to be able to even eat any pizza because the starters were so delicious… but, after trying the pizza later, I was so glad we did!
Then it was time to make our pizzas!
Emmy loved creating her own masterpiece.
These were my favorite toppings. Fresh grilled vegetables!
Emmy took this job super seriously! She also is in love with Parmesan cheese!
You should have heard all the giggling while we were working on our pizzas! I love creating such awesome memories!
Soon our pizzas were ready. Like really soon. I couldn’t believe how quickly they baked them. Emmy wasted no time digging right in!
And then it was back to more chit chatting and having fun!
Zpizza really made this evening special with the conversation starters, place mats, and games that they are making available for download here to enrich the family dinner experience. They also have a great free free upgrade (from a Large to an XL) every Tuesday night at participating locations through the end of June that you can use to create your own family pizza night, or nights as we are doing for the rest of this month! Seriously, Tuesday nights are now Pizza Tuesdays to us!
They will also be randomly awarding free family dinners and copies of Home for Dinner written by Dr. Anne Fishel, founder of The Family Dinner Project, to families that share pictures sitting together at their dinner table and use the hashtag #zpizza on social media! So be sure to share your pictures!
We had such a wonderful night and we can’t wait to have another awesome meal from Zpizza! Here are the other zpizza locations to see if there is one in your area. Be sure to join ztribe for special member only benefits!
pizza party!!! hahaha i love it! such awesome pics. its so cool that y’all did this
I agree with you that Summertime is even better for trying out new dinner recipes.
And new dinner habits, arrangements, and so forth. For example, it is good to spend time together at the dinner table during dinner. This is so traditional, but yet still creates such an impact for the family.
That was such a fun and sweet family dinner spent with zpizza! 🙂
My son will love to make his own pizza too, I can sense that he will be happy too like your kid there.
What a great idea to start fun family traditions during the summer. Pizza is one of our favorite things to eat in my house. Would love to take the whole family out to eat and make our pizzas. My favorite pizza topping is mushrooms!
It is so important to have dinner as a family and enjoy that quality time together. Growing up family dinner was the biggest blessing and curse of all. Having my own family now I realize that it is mostly SO important. This pizza looks awesome!
Now you have me really curious about vegan pizza! My favorite topping is just cheese, but I do get pineapple quite a bit too.
Heather! That is too cool! We just got a new fast casual pizza place in our town – but nothing like this – I want to be able to make my own! That is too much fun!
I think pizza and summer vacay definitely go hand-in-hand. This sounds really fun.
Any time that is made is made a lot better when there is pizza around 🙂
I’ve never heard of Z Pizza but now I want to go there and build my own pie! Pizza makes every gathering better in my opinion 😉
That looks like fresh and healthy pizza to scarf down! I’d love to try Zpizza some day : )
Looks like yall had fun and enjoyed your tasty pizza creations. I wish we had something like that in our area.
We don’t have an Z Pizza’s in our area but it looks tasty!
I have never tried zpizza but it definitely looks worth checking out. We love having dinner together as a family and this would be awesome!
It looked like your family had a great time. My favorite topping is pepperoni – and that is about all I like on my pizza. This looks like a great place but there are no Z Pizza’s in my area. Thanks for sharing!
How fun! I wish they had one of those near us. I love the idea of making your own like that, so fun.
That looks like so much fun. We try to experiment with new recipes in the summer too!
looks like a great time and you are so right pizza is full of fun
How fun! My kids love making their own pizza. They’d totally love this.
Looks like a lot of fun! We love making our own mini pizzas at home.
Family dinners are always so much fun & we have a habit of organizing weekend dinner at home. I am just loving that awesome Pizza party with Zpizza & I bet they are so delicious & yum!
What a great idea! Would love to make my own pizza.
We love pizza and we love pepperoni as topping! How I wish we have Zpizza here too. Would love to eat there!
What a fun family outing and I have to say that everything looks delicious. Looks like you had a blast! I love how everything looks super fresh!
Zpizza looks like a great family night out. I love that they let you make your own personalized pizzas so that everybody gets a pizza that makes them happy.
This looks amazing!! I love hummus but pizza is my favorite. Esp mushroom pizza!!! Thats by far my favorite kind and this place looks amazing! Great post!
Those appetizers look so fresh and yummy. We love building our own pizzas too!
That seems like a fun and DELICIOUS activity. I would love to try it someday. Beautiful pictures and family by the way.
This place is an awesome one for family bonding and friends meetups too. I’m actually hungry just by looking at those pizza photos above.
Well yummy, pizza is always a hit here in Georgia. I’d love to try vegan pizza sometime and hope to visit this place in the future. Everything looks delicious.
What a beautiful family you have! And now I want some pizza haha
Friday night is pizza night at our home! We enjoy ordering pizza from different places or make your own pizza night!!
I have never heard of Zpizza before. Sounds like a wonderful place for some pizza. I like that you guys were able to make your own pizzas. That’s really neat! I usually like to have pepperoni and sausage and that’s it.
What fun! This is definitely fun for the whole family. Love the healthy hummus and veggie appetizer, too. YUM!
i LOVE zpizza!!! they came to atlanta a couple of years ago and their location was not too far from where i worked. i loved how i could get my favorite food that was made with fresh and healthy ingredients!
Pizza is everything ha-ha *Exagg but for most people it makes them happy ^ ^
Indeed a great bonding for family.
How fun! My sons would love to make their own pizzas! I need to see if their is a zpizza near me!
This is a great article, that I really enjoyed reading. Thanks for sharing.