Is there anything Gillian Shaw Lundgren, the culinary wizard behind San Francisco’s Black Jet Baking Company, can’t do in the kitchen? Shaw and her head baker, Max Newman, built their reputation on pies, cakes, pastries and “pops”—the bakery’s artisan versions of the classic Pop-Tart. Then, they added pizza for breakfast. Now every Tuesday night is pizza night at the bakery.
In San Francisco, Shaw is known for working with Netflix on its Pop-Tart-related film, Unfrosted, starring Jerry Seinfeld and Melissa McCarthy. For that reason, SFGate calls Black Jet Baking “Netflix-famous.”
But Black Jet’s pizzas might up the ante.
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Ordinarily, the bakery closes at 2 p.m., but on Tuesdays it has started re-opening from 5 to 8 p.m. to dish out pan pizza by the slice.
“This is pizza night at its finest, as nothing on the menu is more than $8,” SFGate reports. “What’s most special about the pizzas: They are made with the same dough used to make the bakery’s famed sourdough bread loaves.”
Shaw Lundgren described the pies as “sort of a cross between Detroit and Sicilian pizza….it’s a nice, hearty slice…not too doughy, but there is, like, a significant heft to it.”
Writing for SFGate, Nico Madrigal-Yankowski said it’s “a uniquely San Francisco pie.”“The square-cut slices were over an inch thick with crunchy edges,” the food reporter wrote. “Gooey mozzarella cheese found crevices to lie in wait in, while spicy pepperoni made the most beautiful splotches of red as tomato sauce spilled over the edges of the sourdough canvas. The summer corn pie with black pepper and Parmesan was also a delightful representation of a truly San Francisco pizza that takes inspiration from various styles and comes out totally unique. The crunchy cheese edges are a nod to Detroit; the thick crust is reminiscent of Sicily; and the sourdough and farmers market toppings are representative of California. There’s also a deep New England touch throughout.”
Shaw Lundgren opened Black Jet Baking—named after her beloved dog from the early 2000s—in 2010 as a wholesale operation, delivering baked treats to coffee shops and offices, then later to grocery stores, catering companies and restaurants. In 2017, she and Newman opened a brick-and-mortar retail operation on Cortland Avenue. In 2021, they began offering cheese and pepperoni slices along with their breakfast pastries.
Shaw Lundgren has a little pizza sauce in her blood. In the 1950s, her great aunt Grace and Grace’s mother, Nelly, owned Pizza Roma in North Andover, Massachusetts. And she’s open to the idea of starting a pizza shop of her own. “If [pizza night] takes off, we’d love to be able to do more, or, I don’t know, maybe ultimately get another spot to do just pizza,” Shaw Lundgren told SFGate. “That could be really fantastic.”
