By Joe Bonadio

The city’s woes aside, it’s no secret that North Beach is in the middle of a pretty serious comeback. That’s no overstatement: not five years ago, this neighborhood was ground zero for the vacancy crisis, and today our streets are chockablock with new businesses. San Francisco locals rediscovered this charming little enclave after Covid quieted, and our newly minted outdoor dining and drinking scene has forged a North Beach identity that is more Italianate than ever.

Aptly, a big part of that change can be credited to people like Nick Figone, longtime Executive Director of the San Francisco Italian Athletic Club. Overlooking historic Washington Square Park, SFIAC’s Stockton Street headquarters has been at the very heart of this neighborhood for over 100 years, and the org is a driving force in today’s North Beach.

Witness the SF Pizza, Bagel & Beer Festival, which took place for its second year on August 17th. Threatening to dethrone the North Beach Festival as the party of all parties, it was an unqualified success, as reported here.  Of course, the festival was our very own Tony Gemignani’s brainchild—but if he was going to get it done, Tony was going to need the perfect partner. Enter Nick Figone.

Figone has been putting together events in Washington Square for years: from the Festa Coloniale to the Statuto Race and their notorious stag dinners, he keeps the calendar full. And when it comes things like permits, connections and workarounds, Nick is the man to know. He and Tony have been working together for years, so when Tony started getting serious about his vision he was quick to get Nick on board.

A couple of years on, and they just pulled it off for the second time. Last week, I sat down with Nick to talk about the festival, the evolving role of the SFIAC—and their upcoming plans. Lightly edited for length and clarity, our conversation is below.

Joe Bonadio: First off, huge congratulations on the Pizza, Bagel & Beer Fest. It was easily one of the best days of the year.

Nick Figone: Thank you, Joe. I couldn’t agree more. For our second event, we doubled the number of ovens, as you probably heard from Tony Gemignani. We had more breweries, we had more bagel shops, and we had more pizza makers by far. And we had more people, which means more staffing and more volunteers.

So everything was just a little bigger this year. I’m really proud of the team at the San Francisco Italian Athletic Club Foundation for all the hard work that they put in to execute, plan and deliver a wonderful day in North Beach, arm-in-arm with Tony Gemignani’s team.

JB: It was kind of hard to imagine topping last year, especially considering it was a first-time festival. Last year’s event was the happiest day this neighborhood had seen in a long time. 

And you guys did it. There were more people, and there had to be over a hundred kinds of pizza served—which is just ridiculous for one festival. We even got a little Maui rain shower that came in just after 2:00 to cool us all down. It was like we were all blessed.

NF: We were definitely blessed with some very strange weather that day. It went from beautiful sunshine to a great mist, as you said!

And with respect to all the pizza, that might just be Italian culture’s single greatest contribution to the United States. It’s one of those cultural offerings that America has taken and really put their mark on it. And all the varieties were represented at this festival, between the different toppings and styles: thick crust, thin crust, the Detroits and the Chicagos. And of course we had the traditional Neapolitan from the wood-fired ovens.

The fact that we were baking all of the pizza in ovens that came from Italy through New York to San Francisco is a pretty cool thing.

JB: You have to wonder what an Italian pizza maker’s reaction would be to witnessing this event:  What is happening over here? You might be hard-pressed to find something like this in Naples.

NF: Certainly with the breadth of styles, I agree. And the fact that we were baking all of the pizza  in ovens that came from Italy through New York to San Francisco is a pretty cool thing. One of our main sponsors is Marra Forni, and their ovens were used to cook all of the pizzas with the exception of the wood-fired.

JB: Did you take any lessons away for next year?

NF: I think we’re always thinking about next year: how we can improve, and what we can do slightly differently. We’re already talking about having a second entrance for example, just to try to process the people into the festival as fast as we can. To do it safely, and to do it with the appropriate measures in place. Making sure they have a ticket, making sure they are of age, etc.

We’re also talking about ways to enhance the beer garden experience. But we’re really focused on making sure that the quality of the product and the experience remains as high as it is.

JB: You mentioned Marra Forni. Who were your other sponsors?

NF: Like last year, our platinum sponsors were DoorDash and BiRite. BiRite is a locally owned wholesale food distributor that supplies most of the businesses that participated in the event Saturday, not the retail grocer on Divisadero that people are familiar with. They’re just a dynamic and wonderful family-owned business. Then of course DoorDash, which obviously works with so many of our featured restaurants and bakers as well.

There are also so many other sponsors. I’m going to miss a lot*, but we’re talking about Grande Cheese, Hormel Foods, Columbus Craft Meats, Central Milling Flour, Stanislaus Tomatoes…

JB: Anybody who follows the pizza world is more than familiar with these names.

NF: Correct. And now you know what goes into making these outstanding pizzas. They were super generous with product and financial resources. Also, all of the beer at the beer garden was donated, so we had over 22 breweries there with all of their different craft beers and microbrews. So many people helped us make this happen.

JB: So you’ve been doing a great job of activating the area around Washington Square Park since you’ve been in this position. You’ve got another event coming up too, this one also in its second year—tell me about that.

NF: Okay. This year we’re partnering with The Olympic Club Foundation, another hundred-plus year old club here in San Francisco, for the Second Annual Cornhole Tournament. Both of our organizations have 501c3 nonprofit arms, and we’re joining forces to support our relative missions.

And we’re going to that by pitching some beanbags through wooden boards with holes in them (laughter). You know, there’s nothing that says competition like doing that.

So it’s kind of like Bocce, it can be played with a beer in one hand….

JB: And I understand you’ve come up with a nickname for it.

NF: I definitely have….I’m actually referring to it as “Redneck Bocce” (more laughter). And I think that’s starting to gain some traction.

You know, the Olympic Club and the Italian Athletic Club have been playing against each other on the soccer field for over 100 years. We’re both founding members of the San Francisco Soccer League, which recently got a lot of press because the El Farolito team qualified to make it into the national tournament. And the Italian Athletic Club actually won that tournament in 1976, so we’ve got a storied soccer history alongside the Olympic Club.

So we thought it would be a lot of fun to have another competition off the soccer pitch, and bring it to the streets of North Beach with the Cornhole Tournament. You know, once ESPN started to pick up Cornhole as a sport, we thought this could be a lot of fun.

JB: So how does it work?

NF: Well it’s on October 25th, and we’ve got 44 teams competing in teams of four. Last year a winner was crowned after an elimination tournament. They got to hoist the trophy, and of course bragging rights for the year. So we’re going to see if that team can repeat—or if a new champion will be crowned.

The great news is that all of the teams have been sold out. We do have openings for lunch, so for the people who just want to come out and have lunch and have a drink, tickets are on sale for $35. You can come and have a wonderful lunch prepared by the Italian Athletic Club.

JB: And you guys can cook, I know that.

NF: We can cook. And you’ll also have the chance to see folks like Chris Mullen from the Golden State Warriors, and Bill Cartwright from the Chicago Bulls is scheduled to attend as well.

And you never know: we had Hunter Pence and Festus Ezeli show up at the Pizza, Bagel & Beer Fest. They might just happen to swing through.

JB: Let me just say, you’ve got one of the coolest posters I’ve seen. You’re going to make Randy famous.

NF: We love the poster. Randy DeMartini is prominently featured (laughter), along with a lot of the local businesses that have teams.

You know, this is one of the main reasons the SFIAC Foundation exists: to promote and support local businesses. And bringing all of these people to North Beach, we know that afterwards they’re likely to grab a drink, do some shopping, maybe stay for dinner. And just be exposed to what we have to offer here in North Beach.

I was told by numerous small business owners that on the day of the pizza festival, they experienced record sales for the year. So it was a huge stimulus for local business.

JB: So do you think the festival will get bigger next year?

NF: I think we’ll probably get a little bit bigger, if we can find the right way to do it. We don’t want to compromise the quality of the event. Bigger isn’t always better.

JB: Agreed. So looking past the Cornhole Tournament, what are we going to be talking about next time?

NF: We’ll be talking about our Concerto Di Natale for the holiday season. Again, we’ll be bringing as many people as we can to have dinner here in North Beach, then attend a beautiful Christmas concert featuring Pasquale Esposito singing Italian and American Christmas carols. That will be at the Shrine of St. Francis of Assisi, on the first Thursday in December.

We’ll also be talking about Italian Heritage Month, which is going to be huge. October has a lot going on—not just the parade, but we’ll be debuting a couple of bronze plaques for the sidewalks for our Little Italy Honor Walk. Lastly, we’re going to be talking about the relaunch of CIAO Bay Area: the Coalition of Italian American Organizations.

October is going to be a big month for us.

JB: Excellent, I’m looking forward to it. And we’re going to be seeing you at the Cornhole Tournament on October 25th…

NF: October 25th, and lunch tickets are available at the SFIAC Foundation website.

JB: Thank you again, Nick.

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*The full list of SF Pizza, Bagel & Beer Festival event sponsors is below

Platinum Sponsors
BiRite
DoorDash

Gold Sponsors
Hormel
Columbus Craft Meats
Central Milling
Grande Cheese
Italfoods
Lettieri & Co.
Primeros Pasos

Silver Sponsors
Caputo
Ciao
Corto
Stanislaus
Ooni
Fontanini
Rosa Grande
Swiss American Sausage Co.
Burke
Marra Forni
Modernist Cuisine
Old Smokehouse
Orlando Fine Foods