What makes a great pizza? The debate is endless as some prefer a traditional thin-crust Neapolitan-style pie, while others enjoy a thicker, heartier crust – and don’t even get started with the toppings unless you want to start an all-out pizza war. Since National Pizza Day is this week (Feb. 9), we decided to highlight two places not only on opposite sides of the pizza spectrum, but on opposite sides of the Peninsula – Angry Petes Pizza in Point Loma, and Wild Things Pizza & Beer in Ocean Beach.
ANGRY PETES PIZZA
Angry Petes Pizza, at 2734 Lytton St. in Desi’s Bar and Grill since November, specializes in Detroit-style pizza and some outlandish toppings.
“Detroit-style pizza is more similar to a focaccia dough,” said Pete Harbison, owner of Angry Petes. “It’s really light and airy… It’s a ‘deepish’ pizza but it’s not thick and heavy and filling like a Chicago-style pizza.”
Their pizza is light and fluffy in the middle and baked in square metal pans that were originally made in Detroit to hold spare auto parts. The pans give the pies crispy cheese edges. Angry Petes uses quality ingredients including King Arthur High-Gluten Flour, Bianco DiNapoli tomatoes, Grande provolone and Parmesan, and a Wisconsin brick cheese.
“And for our tomato sauce, we use exclusively DiNapoli tomatoes just because they’re the best,” said Harbison. “And then for our pepperoni, we use a certain brand out of Ohio, it’s called the Ezzo Supreme Special Pepperoni. It cups and chars really nicely and it gets amazing flavor.”
Angry Petes has a variety of unique pizza toppings including bacon mac and cheese, barbecue pulled pork, and a Flaming Hot Cheeto Elote pizza.
“I’ve been cooking since the early 1990s and I’ve worked in a lot of different types of restaurants,” said Harbison. “I’ve done pizza, I’ve done Italian food, I’ve done sushi, I’ve done Chinese food, I’ve done fine dining, pastries, breads – I have a large background of lots of different cultural cuisines.
“What I like to do is use our Detroit-style pizza as a base and I can always play around with adding new creative toppings on it. So basically, anything that works as a sandwich works well on our pizza, whereas a lot of that stuff doesn’t really work well on a New York-style pizza or a thin crust pizza,” Harbison said.
Angry Pete’s is open at Desi’s Bar and Grill Wednesdays through Sundays from 5 p.m. until midnight. They also have mini-kitchens inside of Little Miss Brewing in both Lakeside and Poway. Visit https://angrypetespizza.square.site/ for more information.
Wild Things Pizza & Beer is a family-owned restaurant at 2163 Abbott St. (in the former Surf Rider spot) that also offers wings and local craft beer.
“I think the primary thing that we do that helps us stand out is that we make everything, including the pizza dough, in house and it’s never frozen,” said Joseph Galascione, owner of Wild Things. “We make everything as fresh as possible.”
Galascione had been retired for six years when he took over.
“[It was] a great opportunity that was brought to me. [Surf Rider] had a wonderful reputation. I got the opportunity to keep the amazing staff that was there,” he said.
It’s important to Galascione to be local and family-friendly. “Everybody’s local. I think none of [the employees] have cars; they all skateboard, or walk to work,” he said. “I was raised in Pacific Beach. My family’s been here since the 1920s so it can’t get more local than us.”
They also give back to the community. Wild Things has a day every year where they give 25% of all sales to nearby Ocean Beach Elementary.
The menu items are named after members of Galascione’s family. “The names up there are my kids’ names and my cousins’ names,” he said. His family spends a lot of time in the restaurant.
“I have kids and I like to make it a kid-friendly environment. Growing up in Pacific Beach, we used to go to pizza places that were family places… and those are all gone, the beach areas are all party-central, college places now,” he said. “I kind of wanted to bring that back because I had that in the beach area as a kid and it’s fun for the kids to do that. We’re trying to bring that back to the neighborhood.”
Wild Things Pizza & Beer is open Mondays through Fridays from 3-9 p.m. and Saturdays and Sundays 11 a.m.-9 p.m. Visit https://wildthingspizzaob.com/ for more information.
