Square Pie Guys
Is this a decent pizza joint or just a front for selling ranch? Read on to find out.
There’s a local pizza shop called Square Pie Guys that has been all over my instagram feed lately, posting thirst traps of hot square slices dripping with cheese and covered in a very respectable amount of pepperonis. And these slices look pretty damn good - in the way that your ex looks really good in those photos they won’t stop posting, and you wish you could see less of them, but clearly the algorithm knows your true colors. Point is, the SP Guys are good at social media. But are they good at making pizza? I was determined to find out.
On a Friday evening in March, I visited the Oakland location (they also have shops across the Bay Bridge, one in SOMA and another in Ghiardelli Square). Any pie head knows Friday night is primetime for pizza, and I was curious to see how SPG handled the rush (or if there was one at all).
This particular pie house occupies the storefront of an historic downtown building on the corner of Washington and 9th Street, and before even walking through the door, I give them points for the location. Because this is one of the only neighborhoods in Oakland where you can truly feel like you live in a city. Yeah, yeah, technically Oakland is a city, but if you moved here from New York (via Los Angeles) like I did, it really feels more like a small town. And while there are so many things I love about this place, when I walk the quiet streets of West Oakland, I sometimes feel a wistful nostalgia for the hustle and bustle of the Big City. Downtown Oakland on a Friday night is pretty much the closest you can get to that feeling.
Upon entering Square Pie Guys, you’re treated to a full view of the open format kitchen behind the counter. The staff was clearly hustling, despite the fact that there were only a handful of dine-in customers. It seemed like the bulk of their business that night was takeout. And judging by the speed of the rideshare delivery drivers sprinting up to the counter and flashing their iPhone screens before dashing out again, arms laden with pizza boxes, SPG does a swift business. This was an encouraging sign.
I approached the counter and attempted to order some pizza, but when they realized I wanted to dine in, I was promptly redirected to a table where I should scan a QR code with my phone and let technology do the work. This was a major bummer. If there’s one thing I hate about modern dining, it’s the trend toward eliminating wait staff in favor of QR codes. Really, nothing kills the vibe of a hopeful dinner party faster than everyone at the table pulling out their phones at the same time. Just pay people a decent wage to serve food, goddamnit!
Sadly, this method of ordering is everywhere these days. But while some businesses only have their menus online and still take your order the old fashioned way, SPG is one of those truly modern places where you complete the entire transaction on your phone, payment and all. In fact, if you were to ignore the human runner who brings out your pizza, you can have the entire SPG experience without interacting with a single human being.
To an asshole from New Jersey, this sucks ass. The whole reason to dine out in my opinion is for the human interaction. Food brings people together, and many diners want to feel in community with the establishment that serves them. To have that forcibly removed by a soulless Silicon Valley tech company called “Toast” is very disappointing.
I won’t knock SPG too hard for this, I get that they have to compete in a modern world. Toast, on the other hand, can go fuck themselves (and you can tell them I said that).
Okay, now that we’ve burnt more than 500 words on warmup, let’s get down to sauce and cheese.
The menu has some nice variety, but it doesn't allow for any substitutions, which in a gourmet restaurant, I respect. But a pizza joint? Who do you think you are, Chris Bianco?? Come on! I decided to ask anyway, so I got up from my table to approach the counter.
“Is it possible to get half pepperoni and half something else?”
The answer was an unsurprising “No.”
I ordered the Ellen Supreme, which comes with pepperoni, Italian sausage, caramelized onions, pickled peppers and a mushroom medley ($25). This pie forgoes your typical marinara, opting for vodka sauce instead. Interesting choice. For Italian-Americans from Jersey like myself, vodka sauce is the lifeblood of our people. Even so, we’ve somehow never thought to put it on pizza (you can get penne with vodka sauce on top of a pizza, but I don’t particularly enjoy this. Makes you feel like a fat slob). But vodka sauce inside the slice? Now that’s an innovation to get excited about.
SPG is Detroit-style pizza, which means a thick raised crust on a square pie. The best way to describe it is if a Sicilian fucked a Chicago-style deep dish behind a dumpster (a Sicilian pie, not a Sicilian person you perv). The pies are baked as 6 by 8-inch rectangles divided into 4 slices. Is this a Detroit tradition or did they make this up? I don't know, nor do I care because I am not from Detroit and can’t be bothered to look it up. To my Detroit readers, please weigh in.
Personally, I’m not a huge fan of Detroit style pizza, because it’s like 75-80% bread. It reminds me of what I got at the cafeteria as a kid. But it looked really good in the photos so here we are.
I also ordered two beers, a Temescal Hazy IPA and a Temescal West Coast IPA ($7 each for a 16 oz can). This is actually not a bad deal for locally brewed beer. Then, I got into a fight with my partner who wanted to order the “sauce trio” for $4.
To my dear readers who have just recently moved to the west coast, you must know… there is something deeply fucked up that Californians do to pizza. And someone has to talk about it. If no one has told you yet, I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad news. I’m just gonna blurt it out: they put ranch on their pizza. No seriously, like the goopy white sauce. They dip their pizza in ranch like filthy animals. I know, it’s a rough situation and I’m sorry to be the one to tell you. If you need space to process we can talk later.
To make matters worse, this place CHARGES MONEY for ranch dressing. No, I’m not joking. They actually have a whole section of their menu called “Dippin Sauces.” This is the most egregious thing about SPG, and it’s going to be my biggest knock on the business as a whole. Check this shit out.
That’s right, they’re charging $3-4 PER CUP of dipping sauce. And by cup, I do not mean the 8 oz measurement (that would be gross). I mean your classic 3 oz dipping sauce cup, like the kind you put ketchup in at In-N-Out.
$3 for 3 oz of Green Goddess dressing? I don’t care if you make it in-house or get it from Trader Joes, this is straight up offensive. Not only is it a massive ripoff, but by including it on their menu they’re practically bragging about the fact that they’re a dippin sauce company fronting as a pizza joint. The markup here is incredible, and reeks of big business.
I know we’re starting a new paragraph, but no I’m not done ranting about dippin sauce. For $3.50 you can get a “Blood Orange Vin.” WTF is blood orange vin? I got up to ask the person at the counter and for the life of her, she could not explain what it was.
“Is it spicy?” I asked.
“Yeah, kind of spicy,” she said.
“Is it creamy?”
“Yeah, kind of creamy.”
“Is it sweet or fruity?”
“No, it’s not really fruity.”
“Can I try a tiny bit?”
The poor girl rolled her eyes at me. “No, because it’s already all packed up in cups.”
“Can you go get someone who knows what it tastes like so they can describe it better?”
“No you asshole, we’re really busy right now.”
(She didn’t say the asshole part, but I got the message). By this point, the delivery driver behind me was literally jumping up and down with impatience, so I gave up and returned to my seat to resume fighting with my dinner date.
My dear partner, bless their sweet heart, is from Mexico, but they’ve been living in Oakland for eight years, and have sadly assimilated this disgusting habit of dipping their pizza into ranch. Did they win the fight? Yes, they did. We ordered the sauce trio ($4).
We waited about 20 minutes for our pizza. That’s kind of a long time. But it’s all made to order and I guess you gotta give that crust some time to rise. I once waited over an hour for a deep dish in Chicago and by the time it showed up I had eaten my napkin. That pie came out looking thicker than my grandpa’s neck, and ended up being well worth the wait. I was hopeful this one would be too.
One thing that really bummed me out was they did not bring out our beers to enjoy while we waited. “Toast” can't accommodate for that level of forethought apparently, despite being “a new service model shaking up restaurants across the country.” You know what Toast? Not everything needs shaking up! God I hate that company.
Without beer to distract me, I made the mistake of scrolling around the Square Pie Guys IG, where they had the audacity to post an absolutely disgusting video of some evil person dipping an entire slice of pizza into a literal bucket of ranch. TRIGGER WARNING!! NSFW!!
It’s absolutely fucked, I know. I guess seeing this video was my punishment for scrolling at the dinner table. SPG should be ashamed of posting this. But I’m also gonna blame Toast for the lack of beer service which made me scroll in the first place.
Eventually the pizza did come out, along with the beers and the “sauce trio.” And I gotta say, this pizza looked every damn bit as delicious as the photos. It was cooked to perfection too, with cheese that stretched like the maw of Pizza the Hut from Spaceballs. It did seem pretty small for $25 though. Where I’m from, you can still feed a family of four with a large 8-slice pie for that price.
Now the moment I’ve been waiting for, the bite. This pizza tastes… phenomenal. Yes, it is mostly bread, but it was very well baked, with a good crunch on the outside and a satisfying chew on the side. It also does this incredible thing that may or may not be on purpose… it’s kind of hard to put into words but I’ll try: you know that thing that happens when you put a small piece of mozzarella (or any melting cheese) into a hot cast iron pan? And it bubbles, then transforms into a hard crisp of fried cheese? That’s exactly what happens to the edges of this pie. The upper crust winds up being a cross between bread and fried cheese and the result is nothing short of incredible.
The vodka sauce was kind of lost on me, because there was so much else going on, but the sauce to cheese ratio was pretty on point. The toppings were also very high quality. Even the mushrooms seemed fresh, which is a nice departure from those sad gray slimy ones from a can or the dry-as-a-bone mushroom jerky you often get on west coast pizza (I’m looking at you, Round Table). Next time, I think I’ll opt for the more traditional pepperoni pie - the one they always post on social media. But the Ellen Supreme was not a bad choice.
When it first comes out, this pie looks pretty small. But I was actually quite full after one slice (and I was hella hungry coming in). We managed to split the third slice between the two of us and take the fourth one home in a box. It was a decisively filling portion (what do you expect for 80% bread?) and that kinda makes up for the $25 price point.
Total cost of dinner for two: $43. That’s a pretty cheap date!
Now, I’m going to tell you something in secret. You gotta promise not to tell anyone else. Okay, here goes: I dipped it in the sauce. I actually tried all three. The classic ranch was gross, as expected. But the Green Goddess honestly wasn’t all that bad. It was very cilantro forward, which I appreciated. But the best one of all was this strange looking orange one. Could it be the mysterious Blood Orange Vin? Either way, that shit kinda slaps. Do I need it on pizza? Absolutely not. But all things considered, was it a decent dipping sauce? Yes, it was. And did it taste good on my pizza? I plead the fifth. If you tell any of my friends back home that I said any of this, I will murder you.
Final Thoughts
When it comes to making pizza, Square Pie Guys definitely know what they’re doing. If you’ve got a hankering for fresh pizza and wanna treat yourself to a Friday night delight that comes with enough leftovers to bust your hangover the next morning, take a stroll to downtown Oakland and give it a try. You probably won’t be disappointed.
BUT the whole charging for dippin sauce debacle, the QR codes, the lack of beer in my gut while I waited, and the overall trendiness factor of this spot definitely turned me off. I would skip the dine-in experience and go straight to takeout, which most people seem to have already figured out.
Final Review
Square Pie Guys make a very solid, if non-traditional pizza. Coming from an asshole from New Jersey, that is high praise.
West Coast: 8.5
East Coast: 6
Dear JBE, I would like you to correct that SPG does not charge $3-4 “per cup” of ranch / dipping sauce… let the record show that it’s $3 - 4 for three glorious cups of ranchy goodness stolen straight from the dip-shit gods. Don’t be so dramatic 😂