At most concert venues, food is an afterthought. If you’re lucky, maybe there’ll be some limp tater tots to soak up your $15 beer while you keep your eyes and ears trained on the main event. But at San Francisco’s Great American Music Hall, food just became a co-headliner.
As of last week, New York-style slice shop Outta Sight Pizza has taken over the kitchen at the Tenderloin music venue. The pizza shop opened last fall just a few blocks away from the Great American Music Hall, making it a natural fit.
“It came totally organically just from us people in the staff going there and bringing back their pizza, and it was just so good that everybody started going there,” said Fred Barnes, general manager and head booker of Great American Music Hall. “And when we were thinking of what we might do with our kitchen … you know, it just became obvious.”
The Great American Music Hall is at 859 O’Farrell St., San Francisco, just a few blocks away from Outta Sight.
Rachel Ziegler/Courtesy of Great American Music HallChef Eric Ehler, who has worked in fine dining restaurants like Mister Jiu’s as well as at pizza spots like PizzaHacker, launched Outta Sight as a pop-up with business partner Peter Dorrance in 2020. The restaurant has built a devoted following for its thin and crispy pies, but at the Great American Music Hall, they’re doing more than just pizza.
The venue’s menu includes waffle fries, crispy pork dumplings, Buffalo wings, a fried chicken sandwich, a hot dog, a char burger with American cheese, and even a “Saigon Salad” with cabbage, peanuts and coriander dressing. And of course, slices of cheese and pepperoni pizza.
“It’s not chef-y; it’s just really well taken care of bar food,” Ehler said. “It’s like when you go to the concession stand at any type of venue, but people are going to be like, ‘Oh wow, this pizza is really good,’ or, ‘This burger is super tasty.’ And then maybe it will incentivize them to be like, ‘Oh yeah, I want to go to Great American more because there’s a bar there, there’s good food.’”
The Char Burger from Outta Sight, available at the Great American Music Hall in San Francisco.
Courtesy of Outta Sight
Crispy pork dumplings from Outta Sight, available at the Great American Music Hall in San Francisco.
Courtesy of Outta Sight
The char burger (left) and the crispy pork dumplings with ranch and chili crisp (right) from Outta Sight, available at the Great American Music Hall. (Courtesy of Outta Sight)
In the week that Outta Sight has taken up residence at the music hall already, concertgoers have been loving it, said Great American Music Hall director of operations Jack Allen.
“The response has been killer,” he said. “I think people have just been kind of surprised at how good it is … because venue food is kind of just a functional thing for a lot of places. Sales have been exceeding our expectations.”
In addition to giving folks something delicious to nosh on while they enjoy live music, the collaboration is also in support of a larger goal: getting people to come out to the Tenderloin, despite all the negative press lately.
“We just want people to come down to the TL and go out have a good time, and support the nightlife here in downtown San Francisco,” Ehler said. “We all need as much support as possible.”