Legendary San Francisco Pizzeria Introduces Its Newest Topping: A Blunt

New York-style has the history, Chicago its deep-dish, but a pizza in Flowers-in-Your-Hair San Francisco now comes in a style distinctively all its own: With a joint on the side.

Tony’s Pizza Napoletana in San Francisco’s North Beach has earned near legendary status among pizza lovers. Located in a traditionally Italian section of the city, the storied maker of fine pies has stuck to old world, wood-burning ovens and time-tested recipes to earn his fame. But, for his latest offering, owner Tony Gemignani has turned to a local San Francisco tradition: Its residents’ love of fine cannabis.

While pizza and weed is nothing new on the late-night munchies scene, it still marks an epicurean milestone in the”City by the Bay” to see Tony’s officially pairing its renown pizza with pot.  The collaboration between the pizzeria and the newly opened North Beach Pipeline Dispensary offers a discount on a special “Tony’s Pizza Joint” prepared by the dispensary (hold the oregano, please) with every order of Tony’s new “Up in Smoke Pipeline Pizza.”

Gemignani enlisted local SF artist Jeremy Fish to design a special box for the $30 “Up in Smoke” pizza, which delights with the smokey goodness of candied “Millionaire’s Bacon,” smoked mozzarella, Pizzuti tomatoes and a wood-fired crust.

Fish told SFGATE he sees the collaboration as a gesture of good will toward the area’s first cannabis dispensary. Fish said there was a lot of griping against opening a dispensary in the historic district, despite it once being a seat to America’s counterculture. “It took ages for a dispensary to open over here and it just seemed like a classic Little Italy way to celebrate weed,” Fish, told SFGATE.

Fish, known for his playful artwork that has found its way onto everything from New Balance sneakers to trolley cars, says the design of his box allow the lid to be torn off to create a “pizza bib.”

“It’s a selfie opportunity,” Fish says, a former pot activist who gathered signatures for Proposition 215 that legalized medical marijuana in California.

Gemignani says the “Up in Smoke” special ends once Tony’s runs out of the Fish-designed boxes, around 5,000 copies. Tony’s Pizza Napoletana is located at 1570 Stockton St., San Francisco. The North Beach Pipeline Dispensary at 1335 Grant Ave. in San Francisco is open 8 a.m.-10 p.m. seven days a week.