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The Best San Francisco Pizza Tour
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The Best San Francisco Pizza Tour Highlights
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The Best San Francisco Pizza Tour Description |
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The Best San Francisco Pizza Tour of San Francisco debuted March 24th
San Francisco is world-renowned for its wonderful gourmet, yet casual, food culture and its unique California cuisine, but when it comes to Pizza, this city doesn’t usually top the list. Many San Francisco pizzerias protest this, and with good reason. With San Francisco’s emphasis on organic, home-grown, and fresh produce, it would seem a natural and tasty fit for making great pizza. Extranomical Tours decided that it’s high time for a fun taste test between some of the best pizzerias in the city and unveiled the first Pizza tasting tour on March 24th. Hotel concierges across the city jumped aboard the bus for the very first “Best Pizza Tour of San Francisco”, where they had a taste of some of the best pizzas these pizzerias have to offer.
They visited Arizmendi Bakery, a wonderful co-operative, boasting sauce-less and meatless pizza, which fans say goes unnoticed on these tasty delights. They also visited Pauline’s Pizza, where the emphasis is on the fresh ingredients used in their pizzas and salads, which are all grown in the owner’s Berkeley garden. Finally, the tour visited Pizzeria Delfina, a neighborhood hang-out with traditional Italian-inspired pizzas, using fresh and seasonal California ingredients. Extranomical Tours knows the importance of a good pizza and this tour will give its participants the chance to answer the timeless question: “Which one is the best?” Next on the menu will be “Best Taco Tour of San Francisco”. Keep your stomach empty and your eyes open for that one.
Pickups will be at 5pm from the Hard Rock Café at Pier 39 and 5:15pm from Lefty O’Douls at 333 Geary in Union Square. Drop offs will be at 7:30pm
This tour is also available for private charters!
At the end of our Tour, we had the concierges vote on which Pizzeria was their favorite and each pizzeria won on different categories, however, Pauline’s Pizza won on overall taste, so CONGRATULATIONS to them!
The Best San Francisco Pizza Tour Itinerary |
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5:00pm
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Pick up from Hard Rock Café – Pier 39 Fisherman’s Wharf
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5:15pm
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Pick up from Lefty O’Douls – 333 Geary St. Union Square
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5:30pm
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Pizza tasting at Arizmendi Bakery
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6:00pm
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Pizza tasting at Pauline’s Pizza
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6:45pm
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Pizza tasting at Pizzeria Delfina
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7:30pm
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Drop off at Hard Rock Café and Lefty O’Douls
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Winner of the Overall Taste Test: Pauline’s Pizza |
At Pauline’s Pizza, the tour group got a taste of four different pizzas, which everyone agreed were all amazing in their own way. The group was treated to a tasty pesto pizza, which is Pauline’s specialty, as well as a Portuguese Linguisa sausage pizza and some fresh and seasonal vegetarian pizzas with unique toppings, such as fennel and sun-dried tomatoes. What made everyone especially enjoy their time at Pauline’s was their house wine, which comes from Pauline’s own winery in Calaveras Creek. The story behind Pauline’s is especially fascinating, as the owner has a garden in Berkeley which provides many of the ingredients for their pizzas, so that they are all completely fresh and seasonal. Everyone on the tour vowed to return soon to Pauline’s Pizza. |
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Winner of Authenticity and Atmosphere: Pizzeria Delfina |
At pizzeria Delfina, the tour group got a little taste of everything from the pizza to the salads to the scrumptious cannolis! This pizzeria offered us the most variety, but of course, the most important part of it was the pizza. The chef at Delfina’s explained that the philosophy of the place was to stick closely to the authenticity of Italy, while also introducing us San Franciscans to some new Italian styles not found in most traditional pizzerias. We had a variety of different pizzas from a simple, but delicious Margherita Pizza, to a lovely pizza with fresh tomatoes and thinly shaved parmesan cheese and a dash of cream, called “Panna”. Definitely worth a try! As the chef said, “If the pizza doesn’t taste absolutely amazing, it doesn’t go on the menu”. After trying a variety of their pizzas, everyone on the tour believed him.
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Winner of Best Crust and Originality: Arizmendi Bakery |
Arizmendi Bakery is known for all of its baked goods and breads, but people like to come here especially for their pizza. They are a co-op and have a very simple shop, which smells amazing as soon as you walk into the door. Every day, there is one pizza on the specials, and although they may not have as much variety, what really counts is the quality of the pizza. On the day of our tour, the pizza of the day was a pizza with shiitake, Portobello, and button mushrooms with a sesame-ginger-garlic vinaigrette. The taste was out of this world with just a hint of Asian flair from the vinaigrette. This pizzeria is special because they don’t have any meat on their pizzas and most of them don’t even have sauce. While this may deter some, it really does go un-noticed and the only flavor you get is from the amazing ingredients they choose to top the pizzas with. Being a bakery first and foremost, they naturally had great crust, too. Well worth a visit! |
Why Choose Us?
- Buy Direct
- We directly operate the majority of our tours this means we have vehicles and tour guides who are our employees. Being the direct source enables us to provide the highest quality control possible. We conduct customer satisfaction surveys daily and our guides are financially compensated based on your feedback after the tour. On average our tours have over a 90% customer satisfaction rating! The few tours that we subcontract, we only use partners with whom we have established relationships for many years and trust the safety and quality of their service.
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- Only locals know the best San Francisco tour possible. Our office is located in Fisherman’s Wharf at 501 Bay Street, San Francisco, CA 94133. Our local phone number is 1-415-357-0700 and our toll free number is 1-866-231-3752. When you call any of these numbers you will be talking with someone that is located in San Francisco, who can tell you if the weather is sunny or foggy or if there is a special event in San Francisco that may be of interest to you. There is no comparison we are always there for you.
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- We are available from 6:00 AM - 10:00 PM every day of the week, 365 days a year (sometimes even 366 days!) and we don't have a phone tree so there are no phone transfer marathons when you call us you speak to our agents directly every time. Our offices have reservation agents available even on New Year's Eve because we know that you are on vacation and have worked hard to enjoy your time here. We want to make it as easy and as convenient as possible to help you arrange a tour even if you call late night the day before you'd like to participate. The additional benefit of our extended hours of operation is that we can assist you to the best of our ability if there is ever a snag in your travel plans.
- Strict Quality Control
- Our quality control supervises three sources that you interact with during your tour: 1) Our reservations staff is diverse and we count in any given day with people who speak 5-6 different languages; they have all been on our tours to experience them first hand and we always have a manager on duty 7 days a week. 2) Our tour guides are extensively trained on both safety driving techniques and are evaluated and financially compensated based on the customer tour reviews. 3) Our vehicles are frequently inspected by our drivers, mechanics and the California Highway Patrol to ensure they are in top mechanical shape.
- Vehicle Safety Inspection
- Safety is paramount in our industry and one of the biggest safety components in the tours we provide are our vehicles. Extranomical's fleet includes vans and mini-buses. Our vehicles are inspected constantly; first in the morning when the tour guide begins his/her day; second throughout the day the tour guide is verifying fluid levels, tire pressure and the general operation of the vehicle is monitored throughout the day. The vehicles are also inspected regularly (at least every 10,000) miles by our vehicle maintenance staff and also by independent certified mechanics during their routine maintenance. If that were not all, we also go through a thorough inspection performed by the California Highway Patrol once a year.
- Tour Guide Training & Substance Abuse Testing
- Our tour guides are extensively trained on both safety driving techniques and on providing an informative and interesting tour. Before being hired, we test our guides on safety driving in realistic situations around San Francisco they are also tested through an oral presentation of the material they will present to make sure that they provide a safe, knowledgeable and interesting tour. They are regularly evaluated by customer satisfaction reviews, secret shoppers and rewarded through customer satisfaction based bonuses.
- Experienced Company
- Extranomical was founded in 2002 and is one of the fastest growing tour companies in San Francisco currently performing more tours than any other company to Yosemite National Park and Muir Woods & Wine Country combination tour. We are also pioneers in offering tours to San Francisco's Best Restaurants with our "Best San Francisco Taco Tour, Sushi Tour and Pizza Tour". To date we have served over 10,000 happy customers. Guests have chosen our tours to get engaged, begin or end round-the-world adventures, celebrate their anniversaries, welcome new employees and more! We look forward to serving you soon!
- Fully Licensed and Insured
- Extranomical Adventures, Inc. is a California corporation that is fully licensed by the Public Utilities Commission to perform sightseeing tours permit TCP-18350. We also have permits to operate tours in Yosemite National Park and the Golden Gate National Recreation Area (GGNRA).
- Complimentary San Francisco Locals Travel Guide
- Not available anywhere else. Our office staff, friends and family have contributed to a guide book that we hope you will enjoy. It contains not only the usual tourist attractions that every visitor must see in San Francisco but also some of the local spots that we San Franciscans enjoy. All people who make a booking receive an electronic copy that is constantly updated with the most recent information on San Francisco that should prove to be useful and entertaining.
