The Ridge, the new family-friendly pizza place at 7217 Greenwood Ave. N., next to Ken’s Market, that opened on Thursday afternoon, was absolutely packed with people on Thursday night. More than a dozen people waited for a table inside, while more waited outside.

While we waited for our table, many more groups, including a lot of families, walked up and decided not to wait. Co-owner Chris Navarra, who also owns Prost! just a block away, seemed happy but a bit surprised at the opening day crowds.

The Ridge named all of its pizzas after neighborhood businesses, including Ken’s Market, The Avanti (Avanti Art & Design at 7317 Greenwood Ave. N.), Two Birds (Two Birds Tattoo at 7408 Greenwood Ave. N.), The Zoo, and True Value, which welcomed its next door neighbor on its sign.

The Ridge opens at 3 p.m. Friday, and 11 a.m. Saturday and Sunday. It includes a full bar of beer, wine and liquor. The Ridge’s website isn’t populated yet, but its Facebook page has plenty of information.

In a few weeks we’ll add The Ridge to our Food & Drink section, where you can rate the restaurant and add your comments about food and service.

The Ridge, a family-friendly pizza and pub, is finally planning to open at 7217 Greenwood Ave. N. next Thursday.

The website doesn’t have any information on it yet, but you can follow the restaurant’s construction progress on its Facebook page.

The Ridge is owned by a group of friends, including the owners of Prost! just down the street one block, and the Nickerson Street Saloon in Fremont.

The owners of Prost! and the Nickerson Street Saloon are joining with two others to open The Ridge restaurant at 7217 Greenwood Ave. N., next to Ken’s Market. The Ridge, a family-friendly restaurant, will serve pizza, sandwiches and salads. The Ridge will also have a bar, and will serve beer, wine and liquor. The Ridge will be open for lunch and dinner. They will not offer delivery, but will have take-out.

They hope to open by the end of August.

Chris Navarra owns Seattle German Pubs Inc., which includes Prost! at 7311 Greenwood Ave. N. and four other pubs (Prost! In West Seattle, Prost! in Portland, Feierabend in South Lake Union, and Die Bierstube on Roosevelt).

His co-owners of The Ridge will be Chris Gerke (who has owned the Nickerson Street Saloon on the south side of the Fremont Bridge for 16 years and lives in our neighborhood), Tom Griffith (who owns T.S. McHugh’s and 10 Mercer downtown) and Larry Wikan (a beer distributor who also lives in the neighborhood).

Navarra gave us a sneak peek at the inside of the space, which is currently gutted. The front area will have regular tables and the bar to the left, while the back area will have large family-style tables perfect for a baseball team end-of-year banquet. Also in the back upper area will be the kitchen and some games, such as shuffledboard or old-fashioned video games like Ms. Pac-Man.

The walls will be covered with old neighborhood photos.

“We’re going to be all about the neighborhood. We’re trying to name all the pizzas after neighborhood businesses. The Carmelita is going to be the vegetarian; the True Value will be pepperoni or double pepperoni,” Navarra explained.

He said the restaurant would also like to name pizzas after the Woodland Park Zoo and Fire Station 21, and donate a portion of the proceeds to the zoo’s conservation efforts and a firefighters’ fund.

Navarra and his wife and 2-year-old daughter live in the neighborhood. His family is from Germany, so he was used to being able to take the whole family into a pub while visiting there, and wanted to create the same kind of experience here (hence the recent addition of a railing at Prost! that symbolically separates the bar from the regular tables, so children can now enter that restaurant).

Navarra, who opened Prost! in September 2002, looked at several available spaces in the neighborhood over the last few years, but found the rents too high. He said the old Berserk Games space, at 2,400 square feet, was perfect, and the landlord (the owners of Berserk Games) were very accommodating and happy to find a new tenant without having to actually advertise. (Berserk Games, now called Card Kingdom, moved to Ballard.)

“I’ve had this concept for a pizza place in the neighborhood for a long time,” Navarra said.

While the restaurant will be family-friendly, Navarra envisions it turning into the adult neighborhood hangout later in the evenings.

“After the kids go home, we want to make it a place to come.”

According to applications filed with the Department of Planning and Development, Caffé Vita Coffee Roasting Co. is opening a coffee shop and pizza place at 7402-7404 Greenwood Ave. N., between Zak & Zoe dog mercantile and Assemble Gallery & Studio.

The DPD permits state that Caffé Vita will be at 7402 Greenwood Ave. N., and Pizza Vita will be at 7404 Greenwood Ave. N. Peering through the open hole where a door handle would be, the two addresses are currently one big open space.

We don’t have any more information, because Caffe Vita has not yet responded to three requests for more information.

Caffe Vita has five other locations in Seattle and one in Olympia.

We’ve been remiss (and by “we,” I mean me) in keeping our Phinney Ridge and Greenwood Food & Drink guide up to date.

In an attempt to rectify that, you’ll now find Fatty’s Corner Pizzeria and In The Red Wine Bar & Cafe in the guide. Let us know if anything else is outdated or missing from the guide!

Snoose Junction Pizzeria opened in Ballard in 2007 to positive reviews of both its pizza, its use of recycled building materials, and its eco-friendly delivery by bicycle. Now, Snoose Junction Greenwood Crossing is set to open at Holman Road and 105th St. right around Valentine’s Day.

General Manager Chris Jolles tells us they’re still working on the interior, but they hope to open around Feb. 12-14. They’d planned to open in January but the big snow storms set them back a few weeks.

They’ve already received their liquor license for the full-service bar upstairs.