For Clement Street business owner Jake Savas, starting off with a pop-up to bring his pandemic-born pizza passion project to the masses was simply good business sense: There’s low overhead, and he’s been able to stoke interest in his style of thick-crust, Detroit-inspired pizza.
The masses appear stoked. Savas’ pizzas, which he has sold under the banner of “Piedays,” will have a brick-and-mortar home come August, he told Mission Local on Sunday.
“I don’t think we’ve ever not sold a pop-up out,” Savas said. “I only make $50 to $75 a night, but it’s a good temperature check.”
Savas, who also co-owns Wishing Well arts supply store on Clement Street with his business partner, Jimmy Hsu, signed a five-year lease at 600 Fifth Ave. on the corner with Balboa Street (formerly Tastebuds diner). He’s hoping to open Piedays in time for Outside Lands music festival, which begins on August 7.
Hsu owns a number of businesses in the area, and will also have a “small share” of the Piedays venture. He helped start Batches Bakehouse (around the corner from Wishing Well), where Piedays pops up on select Fridays.
Piedays will continue to do so there until the Balboa restaurant is up and running. The oven at Batches, Savas said, has been convenient, but Savas also slings pies out of a portable oven at Tomorrow’s Wine on Balboa Street.
Piedays is one of several pop-ups to move into more permanent headquarters.
Popular Clement Street coffee pop-up HI NRG recently announced a similar move to a storefront on Geary Boulevard, also in the Richmond. Meanwhile, two local pop-ups recently joined forces in the Mission to serve wine and California-Vietnamese cuisine at Fat Cat x the Mantis.
Savas will outfit the new Piedays kitchen with, of course, a pizza oven, and the menu will rotate seasonally.
Its Instagram showcases saucy, rectangular pies based on focaccia-style dough and often packed with produce. Savas said it’ll be important for him to “have a nice assortment of vegetarian and vegan options” on offer.
The restaurant will seat about 20 inside, and Savas hopes to have some outdoor seating, too, “permits pending.”
“Cute little pizza place. That’s what we’re going for,” he said. Proximity to Golden Gate Park, he predicts, will be a selling point for takeout orders.
“’Take a pizza to the park’ kind of vibe.”
At present, Savas wears many hats, (and designs them, too): at Wishing Well, he sells arts supplies, and has printed merchandise for local businesses on the corridor, like Pasta Supply Co. and Schubert’s Bakery.
He’ll hire a manager for Wishing Well, he said, and step away from day-to-day operations while he focuses his attention on this next iteration of Piedays. But, like his first shop, he hopes “everyone will be able to walk in and feel welcome” at Piedays.
“We just want to have a neighborhood meetup spot,” he said.
