Recommended by the Historic Preservation Commission to join the Legacy Business Registry on May 4, 2022, Goat Hill Pizza has been serving its unique sourdough crust in San Francisco for 47 years. 🍕
This neighborhood pizzeria was opened by five friends—Joel and Loris Lipski, Karen Clark, Ruthann Dickinson, and Philip De Andrade—in 1975 at 300 Connecticut Street in Potrero Hill. At the time, sit-down restaurants were not common in the area, and the business quickly became an informal gathering place for friends and family.
Riffing on an old nickname for Potrero Hill, the founders named the business Goat Hill Pizza to honor the neighborhood’s history as a hilly pastureland. During Goat Hill’s early years, the business’s mascot, Goat Hilda de Anchovy, roamed the backyard behind its Connecticut Street location. Her image can still be seen today on the restaurant’s signage, interior decorations, and pizza boxes.
Over the years, Goat Hill has remained committed to celebrating its community’s unique history. The walls of the Potrero Hill and West Portal locations feature local ephemera and historic photographs obtained from the San Francisco Public Library. On the sidewalk outside its Connecticut Street location, Goat Hill has also preserved an unusual piece of neighborhood history; around 1920, some of the last goats in Potrero Hill escaped their pasture while cement was being poured for the sidewalks on Wisconsin Street, leaving their hoofprints memorialized in the walkway. More recently, when the street was being dug up for repairs, the hoofprints were rescued and embedded in the sidewalk outside Goat Hill.
The business has been deeply rooted in the Potrero Hill community since its founding. Significant local events it is associated with are:
• Founding member of the Potrero Hill Dogpatch Merchants Association.
• Regular supporter of the Potrero Hill Neighborhood House.
• Continuing sponsor of and vendor at the Potrero Hill Festivals.
• Sponsor of the annual Halloween Free Pizza Slice giveaway.
• Sponsor, supporter, and participant in Potrero Hill History Night, and annual presentation
of the Potrero Hill Archive Project.
