Mission Pizza by the Slice off Valencia: Serrano's Pizza

Serrano's Pizza, at 3274 21st Street between Mission and Valencia, is the Mission District's no-fuss answer to a late lunch or a cheap dinner: pizza by the slice from a counter that opens daily at 11 am and keeps going until 11 pm. A cheese slice is listed at $7.50 on the shop's online menu, the specialty slices are piled with toppings, and the copyright line on its own website dates back to 2002, a long run for a small pizzeria on one of the city's fastest-changing blocks.

Serrano's does not tell a grand founding story online. Its website is an old-school single page with a phone number, a fax line for orders, a short video and a gallery of customer photos, under a copyright notice for Serrano's Pizza, Inc. from 2002. That alone says something: the shop has been answering the phone on 21st Street since before Valencia Street turned into a corridor of natural wine bars and designer boutiques, and it has kept its focus on big slices and fast service.

Local press has noticed it over the years. SFist wrote about the shop in 2016, singling out its namesake house pie, and Mission Local profiled it in 2020 under a headline calling it tried and true. Both pieces describe the same thing regulars know: a counter where you point at a slice, wait a few minutes for it to come back out of the oven, and eat at a small table or take it to go.

Start with the plain cheese slice at $7.50, described on the menu simply as mozzarella cheese and tomato sauce with any toppings you want to add. It is the cleanest way to judge the crust, which is thin in the middle, puffy at the edge and sturdy enough to fold. Most of the specialty slices on the menu are also $7.50, and Hawaiian and Margarita slices come in a little lower at $6.65 each.

Then go big. The Fiesta slice costs $10.90, and the namesake Serrano's Pizza slice tops the list at $11.75, priced like a small meal because it is loaded like one. If you are sharing, order one plain and one specialty and split them, which gives you a look at both ends of the menu without leaving too full to walk afterward. Slices are reheated to order, so a few minutes at the counter is part of the deal and worth it for the crisp bottom.

For a group, the whole pies are good value. On the same online menu, a cheese pie costs $27.00 for a 12-inch small cut into six slices, $28.00 for a 14-inch medium cut into eight, $30.00 for a 16-inch large with ten slices and $31.00 for an 18-inch extra large with twelve. The jump from small to extra large is only four dollars, so the biggest size is the obvious choice for three or more people.

The menu reaches beyond pizza, too. A cheese calzone costs $9.50, meat lasagna is $16.00 and garlic bread is $6.00. Buffalo wings are $17.00 and a tossed salad is $9.85, enough to turn a pizza run into a full dinner. Pasta and calzones travel well, which is why the shop is a common delivery order for apartments around the Mission.

A simple way to plan a group order is to count slices rather than pies. Two extra-large pies give you twenty-four slices for $62.00 before tax, which comfortably feeds a table of six to eight, and you can split one pie between plain cheese and a topping so that picky eaters and adventurous ones both get what they want. Add garlic bread and a salad, and the whole order still comes in well below a sit-down dinner on Valencia Street.

Serrano's still lists a separate fax number for orders on its website, a rare survivor from the days when offices faxed in lunch orders, and the main phone line takes pickup orders as well. For a single slice, just walk in. For a whole pie at dinner time, phone ahead so it comes out of the oven when you arrive rather than after a wait at the counter.

The neighborhood sets the rhythm. Weekday lunch brings workers from the surrounding blocks, evenings bring people heading to bars on Valencia and Mission, and the last hours before 11 pm are when a late slice makes the most sense. Seating is limited, so on a sunny day many people carry their slices a few blocks west to the park.

Serrano's sits in the middle of some of San Francisco's best walking. Head north and east toward 17th and 18th Streets and you reach Clarion Alley, a narrow passage between Mission and Valencia lined with constantly changing political murals. The Women's Building on 18th Street is covered by the huge MaestraPeace mural, one of the most photographed walls in the city.

Walk west and uphill to Mission Dolores Park, where the slopes overlook downtown and the Bay Bridge and fill with picnickers whenever the fog lifts. Further south, Balmy Alley near 24th Street holds one of the oldest concentrations of murals in the Mission. A slice at Serrano's fits neatly into a loop of all three: alley murals, the park and the bars and bookshops of Valencia Street.

Address: 3274 21st Street, San Francisco, CA 94110, between Mission Street and Valencia Street. Phone: (415) 695-1615. Fax orders: (415) 695-1687. Hours from the official website: open daily 11 am to 11 pm. Prices from the shop's online ordering menu: cheese slice $7.50, Hawaiian or Margarita slice $6.65, Serrano's Pizza slice $11.75, 18-inch cheese pie $31.00, cheese calzone $9.50, garlic bread $6.00.

Getting there: the 24th Street Mission BART station is a short walk south and the 16th Street Mission station is a little further north, and several Muni bus lines run along Mission Street. Street parking in this part of the Mission is scarce in the evening, so transit or a bike is the easier option.