Tony’s Pizza is #2 in America, & the SF Pizza, Bagel & Beer Festival Returns

When Tony Gemignani opened his first pizzeria, now his flagship, on the corner of Stockton and Union Streets in North Beach, he had a grand vision. From the beginning, he determined that Tony’s Pizza Napoletana would be something different, something bigger. In fact, what Tony envisioned didn’t exist yet: a pizzeria that served every style of pizza, at the very highest level of quality, under one roof. Without question, building it would be one hell of a lot of work. But Tony knew he could do it.

That was seventeen years ago, almost to the day. And while it would be tedious to list all of the milestones achieved by this one little pizzeria over that time, it’s safe to say that Tony has done, and continues doing, exactly what he set out to do. Tony’s is a bonafide pizza institution, and the plaudits continue: in May, Tony’s Pizza Napoletana was named America’s #2 pizzeria by the respected Italian 50 Top Pizza organization (the restaurant’s sixth appearance in that list’s top 10).

Indeed, with the amount of press and word-of-mouth Tony’s receives, you’d be forgiven for thinking it was a brand-new upstart pizzeria. That’s because the Tony’s team never seems to stop moving: whether it’s a special event, a collaboration with an out-of-town shop, or just the endless variety of new pizzas constantly hitting the menu, at Tony’s there is always something new to talk about. The key is to keep it fresh, as Tony told me when we first started this blog: “You’ve got to give the writers something to write.”

And write they do. Of course Tony is restless, and these days he is applying his skills to another problem entirely: perfecting the modern pizza festival. On Saturday, August 15th, the SF Pizza, Bagel & Beer Festival goes off for its fourth year; Tony’s brainchild, the event has become one of the city’s defining festivals, taking its place alongside happenings like the North Beach Festival and the Italian Heritage Fest. And you won’t be surprised to hear it’s going to be even better this year. I sat down with Tony last week to get the latest details, and edited for length and clarity, our conversation is below.

Tony Gemignani (TG): Alright, what do you want to know? (Laughter)

Joe Bonadio (JB): Tony, this festival has taken on a life of its own. It quickly has become kind of the must-attend event in North Beach.

TG: Well, it’s different because it’s ticketed. Italian Heritage Festival, North Beach Festival, Festa Italiana, all of those aren’t ticketed. You know, we’re limited: I believe we’re going to have about 6,000 people. And there aren’t that many ticketed events you can go to in the city, other than a mega-festival like Outside Lands and things like that. So we have our own little niche. It’s all-you-can-eat pizza, bagels, up to four beers per ticket.

This year we’re going to have 35 pizzerias. And there are actually ten bagel shops participating now.

JB: I saw that you were doing a call for bakeries a little while back on social.

TG: We did, and now we’ve got one more than we might even need. You know somebody who has a bagel shop? Rose’s, the new pizzeria in San Francisco.

JB: Are they the ones that just opened in the Richmond?

TG: Yeah, but what we didn’t know is they have a bagel shop called Cafe Brusco. So they may be there.

JB: Nice. Are they going to be here with their pizzeria?

TG: They were here last year, in the DoorDash booth. We asked them to come back this year, so hopefully they’ll be here. But I know we’ll have 35 pizzerias. And now there’s going to be a music component.

JB: I wanted to talk to you about that. That’s the biggest change this year.

TG: Yeah, we’re going to have three bands. One is Lavay Smith, she’s got a local swing band called Lavay Smith and Her Red Hot Skillet Lickers. I’ve been going to her shows since I was in my 20s, and I’m 52 now. I think I saw her at Bimbo’s or Great American Music Hall, and I’ve seen them at HiBall Lounge a few times over the years. So they’re definitely coming in, and we’ll have two other bands: Il Sole and Rocket Wheels.

We also are talking to two other bands. It’s funny, we did talk to a band out of Vegas, but it started to seem like we were asking the Rolling Stones to come (Laughter). I’m trying to keep it in the swing and rockabilly genre. We’ve talked to a couple of bands out of Sacramento, maybe one out of L.A.

JB: Why swing and rockabilly, why that angle?

TG: Well I love swing, and I love rockabilly. And that’s what I was listening to when I first came out to North Beach, back when I was young and going to bars….maybe too young. I was part of that scene, my wife and I were, we still are really. I always feel that the jazz, the swing, and the rockabilly components are sort of missing in North Beach, especially compared to back then. So I wanted to bring that back. I just think it’s great to have that type of music at a festival.

And I think that it’s well received, the city is pretty open to it. It’s a little bit more family friendly than most other kinds of music. And we’re a ticketed event, remember. So it’s not like they have to wonder, is it 60,000 people coming, is it 100,000 coming? We control the event, we know the music that we like, it’s family friendly. Because we have practically every age at our festival. So the music is just a great addition.

JB: And you’ve still got the beer component, right?

TG: Yeah, I believe we’re going to have 16 breweries or more. Sierra Nevada is heading up the beer gardens, they’re the sponsor. So we’re working closely with them. We’re going to have some great beers out there.

JB: Nice. Tony, you have such a long history and connection to North Beach. You’ve been coming here since you were just a kid.

TG: Yeah, I was throwing pizzas out here during the North Beach Festival way back in the day. I was hired here, so…

JB: And you and Julie were married here at Saints Peter and Paul. You have such a strong connection to the neighborhood—and now you’re the one behind this huge North Beach event.

TG: Yeah, it’s great. And we’re able to give money back: I believe we have seven charities* now. We just added two new ones, and there will be a total of seven charities that we’re giving money to. So it’s not like this is just some big money-making event; it benefits a lot of local charitable organizations that we raise money for. There’s not another pizza festival in the U.S. that donates as much as we do. I’ve been to them all, and I’ve seen a $5,000 check here, a $3,000 check there, but we go a lot further.

JB: You always do Tony, and more people should know that. And as important as that is, on another level this event is also for the pizza makers.

TG: It is.

JB: It’s for the bakers. You know, it’s….they’re just having such a good time out there.

TG: Well, it’s a diverse lot. Things have changed so much. Five years ago I opened up Dago Bagel. Said hey, I’m going to do bagels. And if you look at where bagels are now, they’re all over the place out here. The pizza industry had a lot of great bagel makers, and no one put the two together. I saw it, and I wanted to open up a place.

This is nearly seven years ago, and now it’s our five-year anniversary at the bakery. But it took me almost a year to build, so we started almost seven years ago, before it became really popularized—and bagels really came back. I mean, there’s always going to be a Noah’s and an Einstein’s, you know. The bagel industry is kind of like the donut industry, if you look at donuts and how that went.

So now, San Francisco is known for great bagels, like San Francisco is known for great pizza. There are some people who still don’t think of San Francisco or the Bay Area for great pizza, but it’s as good as it gets. Compared to anywhere, I don’t care if it’s New York, Chicago or L.A.––wherever.

JB: At this point, that’s absolutely true. The whole Bay Area, really.

TG: So right around that same time, I was going to all these pizza festivals. Boston, L.A., I went to one in Naples. I just started going to them; I did Chicago, New York. And I’m thinking, man, San Francisco needs to have one! And then COVID hit, and I couldn’t do it.

Then when we finally put it together, we were able to get Roman, Neapolitan, Detroit, Sicilian, Grandma—all these styles and pizzerias in one place. And we celebrate it, so the camaraderie is really there. It’s not a competition—a lot of people think it’s a competition, but it’s not. We don’t do Best Pizza, we don’t do people’s choice, none of that. Because it’s not meant to be like that, where some influencer goes online and says this is the best one.

It’s more like I had this, and I had this, and this, and this—and they were all great! Because they are. It was never about a competition, it was always about celebration, it’s about unity, and showcasing what we do in San Francisco. Of course, we get people from outside San Francisco, outside the Bay Area, who come to the festival. Which is really cool, because we can track it on the tickets: exactly where they buy them, and who’s buying them.

JB: Oh, that is cool. And you’re bringing pizzaiolos in from all over the country as well.

TG: Yeah. And you know, we’re also able to celebrate women in pizza. For instance, Gabacool is a new pizzeria by Michelle Guerin, and she’s making great pizzas up in Northern California. So I invited her to come out, and represent women in pizza. You know, Laura Meyer’s here, Leah Scurto’s here—she should be here.

JB: Women In Pizza just had that big feature in Pizza Today, right?

TG: Yeah, you saw that. We’ve always had a Women In Pizza booth here. And the booth has a real pizza oven, not an Ooni. This might have been the first pizza festival to do that. I looked at that, because I do the Vegas Pizza Festival too, and I’m a big part of that. So I said, in San Francisco let’s do beer, let’s do bagels, let’s do pizza. Let’s spread it out, let’s do music, let’s clear up the lines. Let’s create a Children’s Ticket, maybe a non-drinker ticket. That way we can have everyone from 8 to 80 years old.

If you’ve gone to other pizza festivals, you’ll see there’s hella long lines. I mean, it’s crazy. And we have a lot of people at this festival: we’re probably the second biggest pizza festival when it comes to pizza in the US, just behind Portnoy’s event. But we don’t have the long lines they do. We’ve been able to spread it out, and we’re fast, so that people aren’t constantly in line. A booth may be 5 deep, 10 deep at the worst.

JB: The lines were pretty reasonable last year.

TG: And last year did get a little intense, too. But this year we doubled up on the ovens. So even with an additional thousand people, each booth should be twice as fast as last year.

That’s another thing I learned from going to every festival, is to spread it out so that it’s not just pizza, pizza, pizza. I’ve been to almost all of them, and I’ve seen what works and what doesn’t. So we did bagels, and we brought in a beer component. And now we’re doing music. I’m hoping when the band comes on, that the crowd grabs a slice, sits down on the grass. That’s my vision of it. Because we’re going into the park, it won’t be as congested, even though we’ll have more people this time around.

JB: It’s gonna be awesome, Tony.

TG: I think it’ll be cool, yeah. I’m also working on something that’ll be happening after the festival, which I’ll talk to you about later.

JB: Great, let me know. Thanks again, Tony.

The SF Pizza, Bagel & Beer Festival takes place on Saturday August 15th, and tickets can be purchased here.

*This year’s festival will benefit these charitable organizations:

Saints Peter & Paul School
SFIAC Foundation
Salesian Boys & Girls Club
John Arena Foundation
North Beach business Association
Friends of Washington Square Park
Next Village