Escape from New York Pizza in San Francisco, California: A Review

Escape From New York Pizza is a pretty well known local San Francisco pizza chain that sells both pies and slices. I've never been much for it as I always thought it was overpriced, but they opened up a new location in the Mission just recently, and as a promotion they offered up a $2 per slice special all month, so while I was back in town for the weekend I opted to check it out and see if this new location can make the quality match up with the price.

A more normal price per slice for them is $3 to $4, and they also sell whole pies for take-out and delivery. A basic cheese is $14 for a small, $18 for a medium and $20 for a large. Extra toppings are 1.60, 2.00 and 2.60 respectively. They have all the standard pizza toppings you can think of, as well as roasted potatoes and spinach. There's also both barbecue and roasted chicken, but pricewise these count as two toppings for each. Specialty combo pizzas run from about $15 at the low end to $30 at the high end. These include the Pesto Pizza, The Great Escape (pepperoni, mushrooms and onions), The Hawaiian, The Andy Warhol (pesto, tomatoes and mushrooms), the veggie combo (mushrooms, olives, onions, tomatoes and green peppers), the Big Meat combo and the Super Combo (basically a combo of the Veggie and Big Meat.) Perhaps the two most famous pizzas here are the Glorious Chicken (roasted chicken, cheddar cheese, tomatoes, chopped garlic and spinach) and the You Say Potato (roasted potatoes and roasted garlic cloves with pesto sauce.)

When buying slices you can get most of the specialty pizzas in that form. For $2 on the July promo this was a pretty good deal, but at regular prices, I'd maybe only spring for the Glorious Chicken. And even then, I don't really find this place's pizza up to the premium prices that they charge for it. It's pretty good, but not astounding, and the slices certainly aren't remarkably big.

Sides are very limited here, with three salads being about the only option - a Liberty Salad (romaine with seasonal veggies and crutons), Caesar Salad or a Chicken Caesar. The Chicken Caesar costs almost as much as a pizza, so I don't even know if that should be separately counted as a side! Drinks are also extremely limited too, with a few kinds of canned Coke products, Crystal Geyser water, a few flavors of Purity Juice and a few bottled beers. Do note that they don't deliver bottled beer, it's for walk-in only.

For a place with such a reputation (and such high pricing) I just can't help but feel everything here is too "meh" to be bothered with. I appreciated the July deal on the slices, but I'm sorry to say I likely won't be back when I get back to the city and the prices are back up to their normal highs. I guess it works as a delivery option in a pinch, but it's a bit on the pricey side, a little more than I want to pay for just decent pizza. The cheese and crust definitely taste like they are not using premium ingredients, just charging San Francisco prices 'cause hey, we're in San Francisco and the freespenders buzz about us. Oh well. My long quest for the absolutely ideal affordable pizza in San Francisco continues, I guess ...