Restaurant of the Week: zPizza, Upland

zPizza, 1943 N. Campus Ave. (at 19th), Upland

zPizza is a chain founded in Laguna Beach with 49 locations in California, but the one in Upland's Colonies Crossroads Center is the only Inland Empire spot. There's also one in Glendora, at 1365 E. Gladstone St. (*Turns out there's also one in Chino Hills at 3090 Chino Ave., although it's not listed on zPizza's website.)

zPizza is in a small storefront on the north end near Starbucks and is cramped, with only a half-dozen tables inside and a few more outside. You order at the counter.

But zPizza is different and pretty good. Their pizzas are on the healthy side, with organic flour and tomato sauce, gourmet toppings and the options of wheat crust or vegan. They even have gluten-free beer, if that's how you roll.

I go there now and then for their slice, salad and soda special ($7). Recently a friend and I tried it out for dinner.

We split a pear and gorgonzola salad ($8.50) and the Tuscan pizza ($17.50 for a large) on whole wheat crust. It's a white pizza, no tomato sauce, with roasted garlic, mozzarella and feta cheese, shiitake and button mushrooms, caramelized onions, truffle oil and thyme. We liked the pizza and the salad both. The only downsides were the shoebox location and the 9 p.m. closing; it's not a great dinner spot. The service was cheerful.

You can view the menu here. The rustica pizzas, on what they call a "free-form crust," look delicious, as does the curry chicken sandwich.

This isn't the sort of place you'd get a pizza to share with your buddies on football night (although you can get pepperoni), but as essentially a quick-service version of California Pizza Kitchen, it's pretty good. This is my second-favorite Upland pizza joint, after San Biagio's.