Tony Gemignani's Slice House Expanding to SoMa

Noted dough-tosser Tony Gemignani may have put down roots in San Francisco with his holy trinity of North Beach pizza spots, but his latest projects have taken him to the flashier show kitchens of Las Vegas casinos — and a feature-length profile spot in this Sunday's Chronicle to boot. Gemignani apparently wants us to remember that he still loves us back in the Bay because the next addition to his pizza empire won't be another clubby incarnation of Pizza Rock (it's pronounced "PIZZA ROCK," with a set of horns, according to that aforementioned profile). At the end of the month, Gemignani will bring another outpost of his fast-casual Slice House to the current Ironside space on Second Street in SoMa.

After pivoting to a barbecue and brunch spot last year, Ironside's crew is letting the spot go after service on Sunday, March 29th. According to Inside Scoop, Gemignani and company will re-open the 60-seat space with a new Italian electric brick oven sometime in April, with the hope of being ready for the baseball crowds before the Giants' home opener on April 13th. The space won't be changing much from its Ironside days, but with all that seating the latest Slice House will be much more sit-down friendly that the North Beach counter-style spot and the other nearby location inside AT&T Park. The new menu will be fairly familiar, featuring New York-style slices, calzones, stromboli, plus a new focus on multigrain pies. For hungry neighbors and office pizza parties, deliveries will be handled through Caviar.

In other Gemignani-related news, we just found out today that the Sacramento Pizza Rock is attached to a bar featuring real-live human mermaids, which seems like as good a reason to visit Sacramento as any.