#ragazza

[March 30, 2025]

Grief, they say, comes in waves. While many of us are still coping with the loss of Little Star Divisadero* last year, 2025 has wasted no time dropping us on our head all over again. Walking along the 300-block of Divis less than two weeks ago, I saw a sign in the window at Ragazza. And I knew it wasn't going to be good.

After 15 years on the Corridor, the owners decided to go out on a high note. Citing decreased customer volume since the Pandemic and being asked to commit to a new five-year lease, they chose to close down the popular restaurant that specialized in thin-crust gems. You could eat inside the cozy, high-ceiling'd dining room or out in the back inside the fog-protected gazebo. Or, if you lived around the corner like I did, you could still get a couple of pizzas home while they were hot.

That's our last to-go order up top. We went with the Moto and the New York, New York and pulled slices out of the box before I could snap a quick photo - causing me to do a little emergency food-styling. It doesn't do justice to the whole experience, whether dining in or taking it home. If you ever walked inside Ragazza on a chilly San Francisco evening, you will never forget the warmth of the pizza oven filling the entire restaurant, coupled with the friendliness and warmth of the staff.

The sad post about Ragazza to the Divis Instagram feed was one of our most "liked", and also one of our most shared. And the comments paint a picture of just how special a long-standing restaurant can be to a community. It was the go-to for a romantic evening as much as it was a place to catch up with friends. It was the local place you took your out-of-town guests. People with teenagers fretted that their children knew no other pizza. Many a tourist staying at the Metro Hotel spent their first jet-lagged evening in San Francisco with a comfort meal of pizza and red wine. Alex M. said it best, "Close to a perfect restaurant."

And, as our second source so aptly titled their story, Arrivederci, Ragazza.

We know there are a few other places for slices and pies up and down the Corridor. There's those amazing special occasion $32 pizzas at Che Fico (the one with the pineapple is pretty dang awesome). There's the super affordable Apizza that now shares space with Loving Cup. We've got to consider ourselves fortunate to have a second location of San Francisco standard Beretta and to have the brick and mortar of Sunset Squares (which, btw, also does round) in the 'hood. Don't forget Primo Pizza, especially if you 're up in the northern part of the neighborhood. And there's even something pizza-like from Little Brother's Pizza inside the Foghorn Taproom, which took over the Little Star Divisadero space.

But I do ask you to grab a slice and give some love to the pizza joint that has outlasted them all - Bus Stop Pizza, aptly situated in front of the 24 bus stop on Divis near Haight. It's been there since 1986. If you ever grabbed a slice after school or in the midst of a night of partying - Bus Stop will remind you of all those no-frill occasions when you needed something to fill the gap between meals or beers. It's consistent, and we are lucky to have them!

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