……Times change, of course. These days, Golden Boy is strictly takeout only. It now closes at 9 p.m. on weekdays, and 11 p.m. on weekends. But even in its streamlined form, the restaurant remains one of the best spots in the city to grab a bite late at night. At a little before 10 o’clock on a recent Friday night, you could still spot the pizzeria’s iconic neon sign (an enormous hand, lit up in red and green, its index finger pointing the way) from several blocks away. The line outside seemed as long as it had ever been, maybe nine or 10 customers deep — an ethnically diverse crowd, mostly in their 20s or 30s. Because there isn’t any dine-in option, some took off in their cars as they’d gotten their pizzas. A few took their slices into the cocktail bar next door; a few more, like us, found a spot on the sidewalk where they could lean against a wall and eat their pizza standing up, like a proper street food.
What I love about Golden Boy is its commitment to selling just pizza, nothing else — no perfunctory salad or chicken wings. (If you want a balanced, multicourse meal, there are plenty of other places in North Beach that’ll do the job.)
The pizza, meanwhile, is uniquely and idiosyncratically Bay Area. A Golden Boy pie’s thick crust and rectangular shape predate the region’s recent wave of trendy, right-angled Detroit-style pizzas by about 40 years — though no one would confuse the two styles. According to its official backstory, a Golden Boy “San Francilian” pie is basically “focaccia with pizza topping.” That description might lead you to imagine a pizza with a spongy or bready texture, but the most remarkable thing about a Golden Boy slice is how light and airy it is once you’ve bitten into its golden-brown, impeccably crunchy bottom. Though I’ve never tested the theory, I feel like I could eat 100 slices without feeling uncomfortably full.
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https://www.kqed.org/arts/13959808/golden-boy-pizza-north-beach-sf-late-night
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