Corey Rogers opened Corey’s Pizza in the former Turner’s Kitchen space on 17th Street. | Source: Kelsey McCellan for The Standard
Eat Here Now is a first look at some of the newest, hottest restaurants around — the ones we think are worth visiting, and the ones we suggest you skip. We dine once, serve forth our thoughts, and let you take it from there.
Clam pizza is hard to find in San Francisco. But at Corey’s Pizza (opens in new tab), a 6-week-old shop on 17th Street in the Mission, chopped clams get star billing on the sexiest slice, the Rockaway, which has mushrooms and a garlic-cream sauce. Just as important, the crust is a work of art: firm, with dark spots on the bottom, and no breadiness or excessive density.
It is a classic Staten Island pizza. You can practically hold it up to your ear and hear its accent. Owner Corey Rogers is a native of the borough and began making pizza during the pandemic, later selling pies out of the back of his pickup while he tended bar at the 500 Club on Guerrero Street. After the sandwich shop Turner’s Kitchen vacated the adjacent space, the landlord for both properties asked Rogers if he wanted it.
“I got goosebumps,” Rogers says. “My body was like, ‘It’s time.’”
Rogers began baking during the pandemic and later sold his pizzas off the back of a pickup truck.
For him, making a good Staten Island pizza is less about a time-worn recipe or fancy equipment and more about replicating what he grew up eating. “It’s one of those if-you-know-you-know type deals,” he says. But a couple of things differentiate it from other East Coast styles: a heavy sauce-to-crust ratio, blending rather than layering the cheese, and a preference for seafood toppings. Here in the Mission, in-your-face honesty is a key component. “Taste what I’m not hiding” and “I like mine better” are probably the two biggest Corey-isms.
Pepperoni is the fan favorite by far, Rogers says. But the next-biggest sellers are the most exciting: the Rockaway and the BOM, which comes topped with bacon, red onion, and the same garlic-cream sauce. There’s also the Staten Island, with sausage, peppers, onions, ricotta, and fresh basil — a margherita on steroids, basically. They’re all salty and assertive, the kind of slices that hit different when you’re hungry after a couple of beers.
The pies cost $32 to $40 — a little pricier than The Pizza Shop and in line with Mama’s Boy, Hi Hat, and Outta Sight. But Corey’s also has a Monday-through-Thursday special: $23 for a cheese pizza, an absolute steal (and much easier to get your mitts on than Bocchieri).
Corey’s sells about as many slices as full pies.
The standouts are the BOM and the Rockaway.
The walls are hung with framed photos of Staten Island icons, including the exterior sign for Denino’s Pizzeria & Tavern, a 75-year-old institution that looms large in Rogers’ mind. As it happens, I was visiting family in New York last week and rode the Staten Island Ferry for a couple of slices at Denino’s. “Real neighborhood spot,” Rogers texted me. “Outsiders are noticed.” (It’s a fact I can now confirm: The needle scratched off the proverbial record when I walked in the door and ordered a pepperoni, an anchovy, and a local IPA.)
The eavesdropping at Denino’s bar was good. I learned about Mike’s pontoon boat and Jerry’s niece’s First Communion. But the pizza — served on a metal pan with a metal fork, paper plates, and a full condiment caddy — was even better, with an acidic sauce and a crisp crust that was just shy of cracking when I folded it. It’s easy to see how it would be Rogers’ North Star — though his shop is a lot more pleasant to eat in. At Corey’s, everyone, and I mean everyone, checks up on you to make sure you’re happy.
The walls are full of images from Staten Island, from the ferry to the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge.
Corey’s, which at first opened at 4 p.m., has expanded its hours, operating from noon to 10 p.m. on weekdays and until 11 on weekends. Rogers says the Mission’s appetite for late-night slices is hard to keep up with. That puts it on par with North Beach’s Golden Boy, which also sells to the after-bar crowd and happens to be another of the few places in San Francisco to offer clam pizza.
Even by pizzeria standards, Corey’s is down to earth — a good thing, considering New Yorkers’ penchant for unsparing feedback. Maybe the highest praise Rogers has gotten so far came from a fellow Staten Islander. “She’s very opinionated, in a pessimistic way,” he says. “But she commented that my clam pie’s better than home.”
