Hayes Valley based fans of Mission standby Pizzeria Delfina are in for yet another disappointment, as for the second time in recent years it's been announced that the burgeoning chain will not — we repeat, not — be moving into Hayes Valley.
It seems like yesterday that Craig and Annie Stoll opened their pizzeria in the former Quality Junk space on 18th Street, but it was actually 2004. A lot has happened since then. Not only has the face of 18th Street changed—Craig famously told SF Mag "Don’t get me started on the word gentrification. I don’t miss anything about the good ole days. I don’t miss crime and squalor," inspiring over a hundred comments of varying levels of anger on Mission Mission—so has the scope of the Stoll's business, with other outposts of their Pizzeria opening in Pacific Heights and Burlingame.
Hayes Valley, however, has seemed out of reach. There was talk of a Pizzeria Delfina component to Hayes Valley's Proxy, a self-described "content machine" based in a couple of shipping containers on Octavia between Hayes and Fell, but it never bore fruit. Though Stoll told the Chron back in 2010 that "we want to be part of [Proxy]," after months of delays it was announced in mid-2011 that Pizzeria Delfina wouldn't be part of the Proxy plan.
Those who gnashed their teeth and wept at that turn of fate must have been thrilled to see the Delfina-logoed plywood at fancy new development 300 Ivy, with posters reading "PIZZERIA DELFINA DECEMBER 2013." But Hayeswire is here to crush their hopes yet again, for as it turns out, this is a simple case of recycling. Contractors from the restaurant's construction in Burlingame were reusing the old plywood as they built out the Hayes Valley space intended for Corey Lee's Monsieur Benjamin.
“As much as I’ve always loved Hayes Valley, Stoll told Hayeswire, "we currently don’t have any plans to open anything there.”
