For the Democrat-Herald

Presidential candidate Barack Obama made a surprise stop at a downtown Corvallis restaurant late Friday afternoon, greeting supporters and picking up an order of pizza to go.

Even though the Corvallis stop was not on Obama’s Oregon calendar Friday, hundreds of people gathered on the sidewalk outside the restaurant and cheered loudly when the Democrat from Illinois stepped out of his campaign bus.

“There’s something very metaphorical going on here,” Obama said as he made his way through the crowd inside American Dream Pizza on Second Street.

Obama -- who started the day with a morning rally in Portland, then moved on to Salem for a mid-day campaign event and was to speak at another rally in Eugene at 9 p.m. Friday -- arrived at American Dream Pizza in Corvallis at 5:30 p.m. and stayed for about 45 minutes.

The candidate shook hands, chatted with diners, posed for pictures, sampled two kinds of pizza -- margherita and cheese -- and autographed a pizza box for the restaurant's beaming owner, Mark O’Brien.

O’Brien said he was “very surprised” when he got a call about 90 minutes prior to Obama’s arrival and learned that the candidate would be stopping in.

“But we’re American Dream. I guess this would be the obvious place for him to stop,” O’Brien said.

In fact, O’Brien and his wife, Tracey, said they had talked earlier in the day about driving to Eugene with some friends to hear Obama speak Friday night. But they weren’t sure they could get tickets to get inside for the rally at McArthur Court.

“I can’t wait to tell my friend about this,” Tracey O’Brien said after she and her children, 12-year-old Carter and 6-year-old Cade, posed for pictures with Obama.

Just before the candidate headed back out the door to climb onto his bus, Obama’s campaign team took a delivery of six large margherita pizzas.

Dan Rayfield, an attorney from Albany, said he happened onto the Obama event when he stopped at American Dream for something to eat. He had been looking at houses in Corvallis with a real estate agent Friday afternoon, talked with Obama and afterward said he liked what he heard from the candidate.

But he did have one concern.

“I think they gave him my cheese pizza,” Rayfield said.