Golden Boy Pizza in San Francisco, California: A Restaurant Review

The deal with Golden Boy is that they serve up square, fairly thin crust pizza slices. I am not a world traveling foodie gourmand but a humble working man who grew up in typical American suburbs, so the point of comparison that I have to draw here is to that of the giant square pizzas that Little Caesar's used to serve back in the roaring '90s. Golden Boy's pizza is markedly better, however, but the taste and texture definitely compares more to the Caesar pan than a thick gooey Pizza Hut pan style.

Anyway, focaccia is used as the base and then you've got your standard range of pizza toppings as well as a couple of Italian North Beach style twists. Diners can pick up a cheese slice, pepperoni, sausage, clam with garlic, pesto with veggies, or a combination. Most of the trade seems to be in slices, which run from $2.75 for the plain cheese to $3.25-$3.75 for everything else. If you want a whole sheet, however, they can be purchased at a whopping $38 for cheese only, $41 for pepperoni or sausage, and $48 for everything else.

The location on Green Street is very nicely marked with a giant pointing finger, but seating is very limited with only a bar counter and a few stools from which to somewhat uncomfortably nosh. You're pretty close to Washington Square Park, so if the weather is nice, why not wander on over there? One nice touch is that they are open late when most of the other pizza spots in the area tend to fold up and go to bed (at least, the ones worth going to.)

All in all the pizza is usually very good, and I guess the pricing is about as fair as you'll get considering it's North Beach, the ingredients are fresh and they use focaccia instead of standard crust. The clam and garlic is particularly outstanding and worth at least one trip to try, the combo is a pretty good value for the area considering places that sell a generic crappy combo charge about the same that this place does, and everything else is good but passable unless you happen to be in the area and have deep pockets. They got some local beers by the bottle for refreshments as well. And if you go at night there's guaranteed to be a line.

Golden Boy Pizza
542 Green Street
San Francisco, CA 94133
# 415-982-9738
http://www.goldenboypizza.com/