In honor of Dead & Company’s three days of concerts in Golden Gate Park in August, we’re celebrating their fans with a series we’re calling &Company Town. Today: Long Bridge Pizza.
A few years back, Steven Bednarczyk was serving pizza to a family visiting San Francisco from Korea when he noticed their teenage son dancing in his seat. Bednarczyk was struck by the boy’s obvious appreciation of the music: of course, it was the Grateful Dead.
“It was more than toe tapping, he was feeling it,” Bednarczyk recalled. “He got it, and it got him.” It takes a Deadhead to spot a Deadhead (or at least a candidate).
Bednarczyk slipped the boy a piece of paper that read: “Grateful Dead, Cornell 5-8-77,” a reference to the band’s legendary show. Fan-made tapes of the concert were shared widely as a kind of gateway for the uninitiated; it went into the National Recording Registry in 2012, an official album was released five years later.
“I saw this kid getting down,” Bednarczyk said. “I don't care where you’re from, it’s like, here’s this information. Do with it what you will.” As he recounted the story, a line from one of the Dead’s earliest songs, “Box of Rain,” came to mind: “Believe it if you need it/Or leave it if you dare.”
“It was,” Bednarczyk said thoughtfully, “one of my favorite moments under this roof.”
Long Bridge is infused with the Dead, from its playlists curated by Bednarczyk to its decor. It’s in the collection of tchotchkes co-owner Neal DeNardi said came mostly from customers: Dead-themed beer cans and lunch boxes; a Jerry Garcia bobblehead; a copy of The Complete Annotated Grateful Dead Lyrics.
There’s a Shakedown Street sign, a nod to the 1978 disco album whose cover depicts the scene outside the band’s San Rafael rehearsal warehouse. DeNardi contributed a wooden terrapin turtle, a reference to my all-time favorite song, “Terrapin Station,” the 16-minute, 23-second title track that takes up the entire second side of the album. DeNardi got the turtle on his honeymoon in Hawaii, and had the group’s iconic, ubiquitous Steal Your Face skull engraved on it.
The Dead even influences Long Bridge’s approach to customer service and management, which its owners describe as “a laid back vibe, serious pizza.” Like the Dead, the pizzeria has its own diehard followers: the “Vibe Tribe.” Members who come for the food, good beer, art, music, and community spirit get loyalty points towards purchases. No shakedowns here.
I’ve been getting takeout and eating at Long Bridge since it opened in 2014, mostly for the pizza, not for the music. My family is a fan of Long Bridge’s sourdough, which requires a longer rising time and a higher oven temperature, resulting in deep flavor and a good chew in the crust. Bednarczyk, a long time Long Bridge employee who now handles its social media, describes the slice as eating in “stereo” compared to the “mono” taste of even the best pies in his hometown, New Haven, Connecticut, which is world famous for its pizza.
When my kids were smaller, picking up a pizza was an escape from our apartment. I’d go to the restaurant to get takeout, skipping the phone order to prolong the time I could sit and wait with a glass (or two) of craft beer or wine. When the Grateful Dead came on, it became a true refuge, taking me back to teenage summers when I went to shows — “rain or shine,” it promised on the tickets — at Red Rocks Amphitheatre in Morrison, Colorado. Sometimes it did rain, and then shine, which would drive the crowd crazy with joy.
We know where we want to get to. We’re going to get to that point, but we might have to change our roadmap to get there.
Neal DeNardi, co-owner, Long Bridge Pizza Co.
“There’s a lot of things that the Dead did that I practice here,” DeNardi told me. He drew an analogy to the Dead’s legendary Wall of Sound, the experimental, towering sound system that revolutionized not just the band’s music but concerts forever. Long Bridge’s version, drawing from what DeNardi refers to as the Dead’s “strategic improvisation” is an 18-inch, New York-inspired sourdough crust, containing about 15 percent whole wheat flour, no commercial yeast, baked at 660 degrees, and light on the cheese and toppings. Like the Wall of Sound, it’s both a tinkerer’s puzzle and a sensualist’s delight.
But as anyone who’s gone down the rabbit hole of Dead recordings knows, improvisation only gets you so far: you need real chops to make something built to last. “It can’t just be a free-for-all,” DeNardi said. “We know where we want to get to. We’re going to get to that point, but we might have to change our roadmap to get there.”
DeNardi and his co-owner, Andrew Markoulis, had heard Grateful Dead songs as friends at Junipero Serra High School in San Mateo, but DeNardi was just eight years old when Garcia died in 1995. He never had a chance to see the original lineup live.
The two friends got hooked when they heard The Dead, one of the band’s incarnations, at a music festival in Rothbury, Michigan later named Electric Forest. From 2009 to 2016, they saw every show they could.
DeNardi will be among the 60,000 people expected each day at the Polo Fields in August: he picked up two three-day passes, which went for $1,725 each and sold out within minutes. When I asked him if he was going to cut Bednarczyk loose for the shows, he offered another comparison to the Dead: The group would’ve been non-existent without its crew. “He better be going,” DeNardi told me.
Of course Bednarczyk will be there. All three days.
