Where To Get The Best Quick Slice In San Francisco

San Francisco has a long history with pizza. The first wood-fired brick oven pizzeria on the West Coast opened here in 1935 at Lupo's (now operating as Tommaso's), in the Italian neighborhood of North Beach. The neighborhood is still the epicenter of pizza in San Francisco, and the home to half of the slices on this list. Tony's Pizza Napoletana, the tenth-best pizzeria in the world, according to the Italy-based guide Top 50 Pizza, anchors the neighborhood and forces pizza makers across the city to step up their game. Tony's always has a long wait for a table, and we're here to talk about quick slices. My four go-to slice spots to visit when I walk my dog around S.F. are: Outta Sight, Golden Boy, Flour + Water, and Gioia.

I spend a lot of time in San Francisco. My dog and I house-sit for family in North Beach for weeks at a time. Los Angeles, where I live now, is no longer a pizza pariah, but as a former New Yorker, I appreciate one aspect of San Francisco's pizza scene that I struggle to find in LA — a good slice to grab on the go. San Francisco is one of the most walkable cities in the U.S., and that walkability makes grab-and-go slice shops a viable (and thriving!) business in a way LA's car culture doesn't support. Fewer people are drawn in when they drive by a slice place. You don't smell the pies baking or see them sitting in the window. In San Francisco, you do. 

The original Golden Boy Pizza location in North Beach is a regular stop for me. On Friday nights, much of the North Beach party crowd stops by this take-out only spot between bars. During the day, the walk-up window serves slices of Sicilian pizza at a quick pace. I'm not normally a Sicilian pan pizza eater. I don't dislike it, but it's not my first choice. Golden Boy stands out, however, with fresh toppings and a crispy focaccia crust.

A 19-year-old named Peter Sodini opened Golden Boy in 1978. Today, it embraces both Sicily's and San Francisco's pizza traditions with its novel, "SanFrancilian" rectangular pies. "California-style" pizza originated in the Bay Area in 1980, with San Francisco's Prego and Berkeley's Chez Panisse. The style is typified by traditional crusts topped with seasonal, local produce. San Francisco is one of the best seafood cities in the U.S., so Golden Boy's clam and garlic, with baby clams, garlic, and parsley, is one of the pizzeria's signature pies. My favorite is the pesto veggie, loaded with black olives, mushrooms, zucchini, onions, and tomatoes.

Outta Sight is my favorite slice shop on the West Coast. I know that's a big statement. Fantastic pizzerias exist in Los Angeles, Portland, and Seattle. This little shop nails the crust with the perfect amount of char, crisp, and chew. The pizza has the same cheese-to-sauce ratio as a classic New York slice, and thoughtfully uses inventive and fresh California-style toppings. In fact, Outta Sight earned its place on our list of best pizza places in America.

Shredded dry jack is dusted atop many of the pizzas as they come out of the oven, giving the slices a distinctive taste. Dry Jack is California's replacement for Parmesan. It's a nutty, hard cheese with a cocoa powder and pepper rind, made by Vella Cheese in Sonoma. The rest of Outta Sight's ingredients are equally steeped in California culture. Stanislaus tomatoes, Corto olive oil, and Black Diamond mushrooms are some of the local growers and suppliers tapped by the kitchen.

Outta Sight started like many new pizzerias did — as a pop-up during the pandemic. Owners Eric Ehler and Peter Dorrance met while working at the Michelin-starred Chinese restaurant, Mister Jiu's. The second location in Chinatown has a bigger kitchen, allowing the pair to showcase their pedigree with specialty toppings like tea-smoked duck, Sichuan hot honey, and butter chicken. My personal favorite here is the Space Coyote, a red sauce pie with ricotta and smoky mushrooms.

At Gioia, New York-style pizza built on California ingredients is the name of the game. Many San Francisco pizzerias rely on local ingredients, because it would be criminal not to draw from the agriculturally rich regions nearby. Gioia is a no-fuss neighborhood place where the slices are an excellent example of a NYC and S.F. collaboration. The crust is sturdy, charred, and crispy, and the toppings are fresh. Gioia considers farm-to-table eating to be a fact of life. When I stop in, I'm there with locals, grabbing a slice for the walk home. I lived in New York City for eight years, and I miss the walking slice that doesn't flop mid-bite.

The San Francisco location opened in 2019, 15 years after the original Berkeley spot. The second location offers an expanded menu, with wings, meatballs, and chicken parm or meatball parm served on a ciabatta roll. The cannoli is fresh and creamy with a flaky shell. Everything is made in-house and is ready to take on the go.

The Flour + Water Hospitality Group runs pasta and pizza restaurants throughout the Bay Area. In North Beach, Flour + Water Pizzeria is known as a sit-down establishment, where gourmet Neapolitan pies showcase the regional bounty of Northern California. The Pizza Shop is a casual offshoot of the pizzeria, with a full menu of Neapolitan pies and square-cut pan slices. These "Big Slices" are sold for takeout or dine-in at the restaurant group's Pizza Shop locations in Oakland, Mission Rock, and in the back of the North Beach Pizzeria. The slice counter at the North Beach location is accessible from Stockton Street.

The only slice options are Margherita, pepperoni, and sometimes a rotating third option. You can order whole pies off the regular menu, but we're just talking slices here. The pan crust is crunchy, with cheese crisping at the edges as if it were a Detroit-style pie. Each pan is cut into four pieces, so you always get a corner slice with crunchy cheese lining two sides of the crust. A dessert of soft serve, with toppings like brown butter cereal crunch and Amarena cherries, is worth saving room for.