Two acclaimed San Francisco pizza shops have announced this month that they’re closing or getting ready to close. One was characterized as a David-vs.-Goliath battle, but this time David lost.
Regardless, neither brand plans to stay down for the count.
The closure of underdog Cheezy’s Artisan Pizza might have the most frustrating back story. Located in Saluhall, Ikea’s food hall in downtown San Francisco, Cheezy’s has earned national renown via co-owner and pizzaiolo David Jacobson, a member of PMQ’s U.S. Pizza Team. Jacobson won the $15,000 grand prize in the 2022 Real California Pizza Contest, a high-prestige honor that led him to later open Cheezy’s with partner Raluca Romero.
As The San Francisco Standard has reported, Cheezy’s closed on March 6 after just one year in business due to ongoing problems with the food hall’s new manager, Ingka Centres, which is also the parent company of Ikea. Two bars and a cooking school had already shuttered in the food hall, leading to decreased food traffic. Other eateries opened and quickly closed earlier in 2025.
In fact, The Standard reported in January that the much-ballyhooed Salulall “has more vacancies than filled booths.”
The men behind Cheezy’s finally got fed up. With equipment issues and other concerns that needed to be addressed, Jacobson and Romero reportedly decided to stop paying rent until a resolution could be reached with the managers. But Jacobson said Ingka chose to revoke Cheezy’s license to operate in the food hall instead, forcing its closure.
“We tried to operate legally and professionally, but the structure made that impossible,” Cheezy’s owners wrote in a March 6 post on social media. “We raised every issue, stayed transparent and did the work. In the end, our license was revoked.”
Jacobson and Romero have said they will maintain their presence in San Francisco with pop-ups, catering and pizza-making classes. Jacobson said they’re also looking for a new space for their next brick-and-mortar operation.
“It’s been a wild ride,” he told The Standard earlier this month. “I really was optimistic the whole time, until even a few days ago, that it would work out. It feels like a David-and-Goliath moment.”
It’s less clear exactly why Del Popolo, also in San Francisco, will close its doors on May 8. But owner Jon Darsky said the brand has a bright future.
“While this marks the end of Del Popolo as a brick-and-mortar restaurant,” he wrote in a social media post, “I’m excited to begin a new chapter focusing on our frozen sourdough pizza. It’s guided by the same commitment to authenticity, process and quality that built and sustained both the truck and the restaurant.”
Darsky added, “Changing the way people think about frozen pizza is a mission I believe in, and I’m eager to continue building on what we’ve already accomplished.”
Del Popolo started as a food truck in 2012 and opened as a brick-and-mortar in 2015. It’s featured on Michelin’s Bib Gourmand list and was named one of 50 Top Pizza’s best in the U.S.A. last year as well as in 2024, 2022 and 2021. Additionally, San Francisco Eater ranked its frozen pies among the “best frozen pizza from restaurants” in the city in 2021.
“Del Popolo has some of the best Neapolitan-style pies in the city, those thin pizzas that puff up like a pillow with black leopard spots,” SF Eater reporter Becky Duffett wrote at the time. “I wondered how it could possibly hold up if not served directly out of the fiery inferno of their legendary oven, but frozen and flashed again at home. In fact, it was the finest frozen pizza I’ve ever eaten, still maintaining that tanginess and chewiness from their slow fermented dough.”
