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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!
This looks so fun to make your own pizza. The hummus would be my favorite starter dish.
I love that there are more and more restaurants that allow you to make your own pizza, that just makes the dining experience so much more fun, doesn’t it? This is an awesome place to go to with the kids and who doesn’t like pizza! I love the ambiance, it’s casual and relaxing.
Wow, awesome! I would like to go to a place like this in our country. I would love to make my own pizza, I am sure my son would love it too.
Isn’t it awesome? I was just thinking that. My kids would make such a mess, but I wouldn’t have to clean it up. Bonus.
Sounds like a great adventure you have in making your own pizza. I would love to try it.
It looks like y’all had so much fun! What could be better than getting to make your own pizza?!?
Awww! You guys had a blast. I bet this was fun. I would LOVE for my kids to make their own pizza. I would LOVE to make the Hawaiian pizza but we ordered mostly half cheese and half pepperoni.
Zpizza looks like a happy place for the family. I would love to make my own pizza. I think kids will love this idea.
My step-mom and her family are from Laguna Beach. It is such a beautiful area!! I never had the opportunity to experience Zpizza but will have to ask her about it. Thanks for sharing.
This looks like a super fun place to go for a family dinner night. I love places where everyone can customize their own pizza because it means I get to eat what I want for a change. The hummus plate and salads also looked very delicious.
great pictures! I dont think I get to see you enough in them! Now I want some piizzaaa haha
ZPizza looks like a great place. It takes a good restaurant to do avocados right. I’d love to eat there.
That sound like pretty cool place. I bet that it is a hot spot during the summer since pizza is a favorite to many.
This food looks so yummy!! It really makes me wish I had some pizza!
That is thoroughly awesome! I love the idea of being able to make my own pizza.
I don’t think we have this place but it would be fun. I would love to do something like this just because it’s fun to get out of the house and do something besides a movie.
Pizza is hands down the favorite of everyone in my house! My kids would love to build their own pizza like this!
I really like the ambiance of the place. I’m bummed we don’t have a Z Pizza here, but if I ever come across one, I am definitely giving it a try. It sounds super delish!
I have never heard of this place. I don’t think it’s near us but it looks nice.
What a fun family dinner! It’s so cool that you get to make your own pizzas. They looked great!
What a fun place to grab dinner!! We have pizza nice at least once a week in our house, the kids would love this place for dinner.
Sounds like such a fun family dinner. You guys are always having so much fun!
Wow this looks awesome, would love to do something like this with the fam if we had one near us! looks like tons of fun the whole family would enjoy!
I love cheese so I usually top my pizzas with just mozzarella and cheddar cheese. Zpizza looks like a fun restaurant for a family night out. I love that everyone can create the own special pizza and that they have a gluten free option.
I have never heard of ZPizza but it looks like a really fun and trendy pizza place. Pizza looks good too. I like my pizza to be all vegetables with extra green and black olives. YUM!
I’ve never heard of ZPizza before. I’m not sure there’s one near me but I love how you can make your own pizza and get salads.
You guys looked like you were having so much fun! I loved all the pictures. Personal pizzas are always such a fun activity to do together. And the best part is you get pizza afterwards too. Happy Eating!
Looks like such a fun place my kids would love to go there!
Cute pictures! Looks like a fun place for the whole family
That looks so very yummy! What a cool business and a great place to take the family to have a dinner. Reasonably priced, delish and fun, what more could you want?
This place looksawesome. The veggie options for the salads look delicious and hen getting to make your own pizzas would be so much fun!
Everyone in our house loves pizza too. What a fun place to spend an evening together!
This would be so fun to make your own pizza. I would love to try Zpizza. It looks delicious.
Zpizza looks like a great place to take the kids for dinner. We would have fun making our own pizzas.
I so wish that we had a Zpizza near me! Looks like so much fun for the entire family!
Family dinners are always fun. We like to have pizza and wings. Zpizza looks like a great restaurant.
We eat dinner as a family every single night and I cherish that time so very much. Creating our own pizzas would be a total hit around here too!
ZPizza looks like a lot of fun and a great place to have a birthday party!! Great post!!
I love that you can make your own pizza. The kids love when we go out for pizza, this would be so much fun!
We don’t have Zpizza. I like ground beef and onions on my pizza.
I think it is wonderful that they organize community dinners for the underserved how kind of them and glad you liked the vegan pizza.
Shame we don’t have this in the UK. A few chains do it just for kids but I’d love to do this as an adult.
It looks like you had a fabulous time indeed. The Zpizza sounds like a great place to have a party or just have dinner. I have never heard of it before but I love that they have gluten free pizza as well as vegan too. Thanks for sharing this place.
This looks like a lot of fun! A great dining experience. Pizza is one of my favorite foods this would be a great place to go with the family. It looks delicious.
That looks like such a fun place to have a meal! The food looked delicious, too. I’ll have to check it out if we ever end up near one!
I have never heard of this place before, but OMG I wanna go just to get grilled veggies for my pizza!!! This looks delicious.
This sounds like so much fun! I wish we had one closer as I’m sure my son would LOVE this!
Seems like a lot of fun! Activities like this are really nice for the whole family to enjoy 🙂
It’s always fun to make your own pizza. There is a similar artisan pizzeria here. It’s also good and people have to wait on queue before you can enjoy making your own pizza.
This would be a great place for a party. I love that you can make your own pizzas. Very cool!
What a lovely family! I love summer time because I get to plan all kinds of fun activities for my kids. Thank you for sharing !