Piedays opens permanent Balboa Street pizza shop in Richmond District

Balboa Street is getting a new test of its commercial pull: Jake Savas has signed a five-year lease for Piedays at 600 Fifth Ave., on the corner with Balboa Street, in the former Tastebuds diner space. The move turns a pandemic-born pizza project into a permanent storefront just as the Richmond District is weighing what kinds of businesses can survive on a corridor that depends on steady neighborhood foot traffic.

Savas is betting that the thick-crust, Greek-influenced pies that built Piedays’ following will keep drawing customers once the pop-up model gives way to rent, staffing and regular hours. One signature pie, the Yia Yia Betty, leans into Savas’s Greek roots and frames the shop as more than another slice counter. Savas hopes to open in time for Outside Lands, which begins Aug. 7.

The opening also marks a larger shift in Savas’s own path in San Francisco. Before pizza, he owned The Wishing Well Workshop at 252 Clement St., an art supply shop and printing studio that was his first ownership venture. He ran it with Jimmy Hsu, the longtime owner of Blue Danube Cafe. His pizza making started at home after his wife gifted him pizza-making supplies, then moved to service at O’Keefe’s on Balboa before the pop-up took off.

Balboa Street and the wider Richmond have reasons to hope a permanent tenant can stick. San Francisco Planning says the district has seen slow population and housing growth since 1980, and more than 1,400 people responded to its Richmond District Community Needs Assessment Survey. Those respondents singled out pedestrian safety, wider sidewalks, sidewalk seating and cleanliness as top priorities, while naming Green Apple Books, the Balboa Theatre and Toy Boat Dessert Café as integral neighborhood businesses. That mix suggests the corridor still relies on a blend of destination draws and everyday errands, with restaurant success tied as much to the street outside as to the menu inside.

Piedays is not the only small food business making that leap. A Clement Street coffee pop-up, HI NRG, is moving into a storefront on Geary Boulevard, and Rose Pizzeria opened in the Inner Richmond with more kitchen space and new menu additions. The pattern suggests San Francisco still has room for pop-up momentum to become brick-and-mortar survival, but only if the neighborhood delivers enough repeat business to justify the lease.

That is what makes the Balboa opening worth watching. Balboa Village is only about eight blocks long, but city planning describes it as home to two award-winning bakeries, seven restaurants, two cafés, an independent movie theater, a flower shop and a market. The Balboa Theatre opened on Feb. 27, 1926, and community benefit districts remain part of the maintenance behind that kind of street life, funding cleaning, safety, economic development and neighborhood marketing. If Piedays holds its ground, it will say as much about Balboa Street’s recovery as it does about one chef’s pizza.