Five forty-two Green Street has been doing the same thing since 1978, and the thing is unusual enough that people who only know round, thin, foldable pizza are briefly confused by it. Golden Boy sells square slices cut from sheet pans, on a base that is essentially focaccia with a very crisp bottom, with roughly six pies on the entire menu and no interest in expanding that.
Karpo can tell you whether the Green Street counter is still cutting slices at this hour and what else in North Beach is open if you have missed the last tray.
Focaccia with a crisp bottom is a different product
The base here is thick, airy and bread-like in the middle, with a bottom that has fried in oil in the pan until it is genuinely crunchy. That combination — soft interior, hard base — is what separates it from both a New York slice and a Sicilian one, and it is the reason the slices are heavy for their size.
There is also a lot of cheese, deliberately. This is not a restrained pizza and it does not want to be. One slice is a substantial snack and two is a full meal for most people, which is worth knowing before you order three because they looked small behind the glass.
Six pies, and the one to order
The menu runs to about six options, available by the slice or by the sheet, including cheese, a pesto vegetable, and a combination with sausage. The two that regulars point newcomers toward are the pepperoni and the clam and garlic.
The clam and garlic is the genuinely distinctive one and the reason to make a special trip. It is aggressive, briny and heavily garlicked in a way that no chain and very few independents would attempt, and it is either the best thing on the board or completely not for you. There is not much middle ground, which is part of its appeal.
The payment rule
This is a cash or physical card operation — no phone payments. In 2026 that catches out a meaningful number of people who have not carried a card in years, and there is no sympathetic workaround at the counter when the queue is out the door on a Friday night.
Carry cash. It is the simplest solution, it speeds the transaction, and it is in keeping with the general character of a counter that has resisted almost every change the last four decades have offered it. There are ATMs on Columbus a short walk away if you arrive unprepared.
The hours are narrower than the neighbourhood
Monday through Thursday the counter runs from half past eleven in the morning until nine at night. Friday it stays open until eleven. That is meaningfully earlier than North Beach's reputation as a late neighbourhood would suggest, and the nine o'clock close midweek is the single most common way to miss out.
The Friday extension to eleven is when this counter does its most characteristic business, catching people coming out of the bars on Columbus and Grant. If your mental model is a two-in-the-morning slice place, adjust it — Golden Boy is an evening counter that happens to stay open a bit later at the end of the week.
Standing room and the queue
There is very little seating and the room is small. Most people eat standing at a ledge or on the pavement outside, which is normal here and part of the format. The queue at peak on a Friday can be substantial and it moves at the pace of the trays coming out.
Watch what is in the display before you commit. Because this is sheet-pan pizza rather than round pies, a tray that has just come out and a tray that has been sitting are visibly different, and the crisp bottom is the thing that degrades. A fresh tray is worth a two-minute wait.
Where it sits in North Beach
Green Street runs between Columbus and Grant, right in the middle of the neighbourhood and a short walk from Washington Square. That puts Golden Boy within a couple of minutes of most of North Beach's bars, which is the entire logic of its Friday hours.
It also sits close enough to the other North Beach pizza institutions that a comparison walk is genuinely feasible — a square slice here and a Neapolitan pie a few blocks away is a reasonable evening and tells you more about pizza than either would alone. Phone (415) 982-9738 to confirm hours before a special trip.
Why it has lasted
Nothing about Golden Boy is designed to be photographed, and the menu has barely moved since the seventies. What it has instead is a specific product that nowhere else in the city does as well, at a price that has stayed reasonable, in a location that guarantees foot traffic.
That is a durable formula, and it explains why a counter with six items, limited hours, no seating and no phone payments has outlasted a great many more accommodating restaurants on the same street. Go once, order the clam and garlic, and you will understand the queue.
- Address: 542 Green Street, San Francisco, CA 94133, between Columbus Avenue and Grant Avenue
- Hours: Monday-Thursday 11:30 AM - 9:00 PM; Friday 11:30 AM - 11:00 PM
- Phone: (415) 982-9738
- Payment: cash or a physical card only; no phone payments accepted
- Open since: 1978
- The style: square slices from sheet pans on a focaccia-like base with a fried, crisp bottom
- What to order: pepperoni, or the clam and garlic if you want the distinctive one
- Seating: minimal; most people eat standing at a ledge or outside
Tags: #PizzaNearMe #SanFrancisco #GoldenBoyPizza #NorthBeach #GreenStreet #SquareSlice #FocacciaPizza #ClamAndGarlic #SFEats #HiddenGems #CashOnly #Pizzeria #SinceNineteenSeventyEight
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Ask Karpo first
Ask Karpo whether Golden Boy is still open right now, how the North Beach evening is running around Green Street, and which nearby counters are still cutting if the trays have already come out.
