The scent hits you first—yeasty, tangy, with hints of caramelized cheese hanging in the air like an edible memory. Inside Goat Hill Pizza, the warm glow of pendant lights illuminates tables where generations of San Franciscans have gathered over sourdough pies since 1975. Behind this Potrero Hill institution stands Philip De Andrade, a man whose path to pizza perfection began, surprisingly, in a seminary.
De Andrade’s journey from potential priest to pizza pioneer represents one of those beautiful life detours that reshape a city’s flavor profile. Celebrating its 50th anniversary this year, Goat Hill Pizza has outlasted countless restaurant concepts that arrived with hype and departed quietly—from the fern bars of the ’70s to today’s QR-code-menu speakeasies.
The revelation that would change De Andrade’s life came during his studies at Hanna Center in Sonoma, where he discovered pizza for the first time in his early 20s. This culinary epiphany eventually led him away from religious vocation and toward a different kind of communion—one centered around a perfect sourdough crust that would become San Francisco gospel…