News

Apr 16, 2023

Why a popular SF pizza joint closed up shop and moved to Tahoe

Roasted mushroom pizza from Great Gold in Truckee, CA. Lake Tahoe can perhaps

Roasted mushroom pizza from Great Gold in Truckee, CA.

Lake Tahoe can perhaps thank the pandemic for one good thing: bringing more quality pizza to the Sierra Nevada.

"I like to explain that our pizza style is a cross between a Neapolitan and a New York-style pizza," explains Great Gold chef and co-owner Brandon Kirksey. "And that was intentional. When we were open just for takeout, we wanted something that would have some integrity in the pizza box."

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Great Gold is a highly rated Italian restaurant tucked away in the unassuming Pioneer Commerce Center, in a less-touristy area of Truckee. Its neighbors include a low-key deli and auto garage specializing in speedy oil changes. But despite its unremarkable location, Great Gold's cuisine has landed it among the more in-demand culinary establishments in north Lake Tahoe. It's a spot where patrons are almost guaranteed a wait without a reservation on any given Saturday.

Great Gold has been busy since it opened in 2018 — but it didn't make it to Truckee until 2020.

That's because before it was a thriving Italian restaurant in the Sierra Nevada, it was a thriving Italian restaurant in San Francisco's Mission District. When COVID-19 hit, the owners did what so many city residents did: They closed their doors, left their lease and moved to Lake Tahoe.

SF diners who didn't have a chance to dine at Great Gold may be familiar with another well-loved city restaurant: Flour + Water. The popular restaurant also in the Mission serves Italian food with a distinctly California twist. That's where Kirksey met David Steele, in Flour + Water's kitchen. The two teamed up to open Foxsister, a modern Korean restaurant named after a well-known Korean fairytale. However, after spending nearly 20 years working in restaurants ranging from French to Italian to global fusion, Kirksey realized his passion was in creating food with simple, quality ingredients, which consistently led him back to Italian food.

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"I got really into handmade pasta and the whole idea of the Italian cuisine orthodox, which is just simple food with a focus on quality ingredients," he says. "So the technique comes after sourcing. I’m an ingredients-focused chef."

Kirksey and Steele transitioned Foxsister into Great Gold at the intersection of 24th Street and Shotwell Street in 2018. Kirksey said it was fairly popular, crediting the crowds to the uniqueness of Great Gold's cuisine. "Doing Italian food in San Francisco; it's not like we’re inventing anything," he says. He says that they used Flour + Water's sourcing philosophy, including using locally grown ingredients and practicing whole-animal butchering, but decided to do away with the California influences. "We did East Coast Italian," he says. "We went the more Jersey-style, red-sauce route."

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At the start of the pandemic, San Francisco implemented some of the most stringent dining restrictions in the nation. From March to September 2020, restaurants in the city were prohibited from offering indoor dining, and a second ban was imposed toward the end of that same year. Kirksey explains that Great Gold's situation was no different than many in the city, citing a 75% drop in business during the months they were able to offer takeout only. "We could have made it work," he said. "I guess we were making it work."

But in mid-2020, a combination of factors convinced Kirksey and Steele to move to Truckee. First, says Kirksey, was the fact that they’d been eyeing opening a second location around Lake Tahoe for several years. They eventually found the location, a near-move-in-ready location with an appealing economic twist: Their landlord agreed to a rent model based on business, where the monthly payment is a percentage of the profits. "If we make zero dollars," says Kirksey, "the rent he gets is a percentage of zero. They share in the risk, but they share in the reward."

Great Gold shares a dining playlist with guests each night who may be curious about what's playing.

Interior of Great Gold in Truckee Calif.

That was a stark contrast to Great Gold's San Francisco landlords, who Kirksey says didn't have the flexibility to make any concessions with the rent while business was down during COVID. He says Great Gold's SF landlords were the owners of the home Great Gold was housed in, rather than a corporate owner with lots of income flexibility.

"Originally, we were intending to do a second location: a Great Gold San Francisco and a Great Gold Truckee," Kirksey says. "But then it just kind of made more sense to close up and move up here, just because of the complications of that time period."

Great Gold's turnaround was quick, closing the Mission location in August 2020 and opening the Tahoe location in November that year.

"We would still probably have that restaurant if it weren't for COVID," he added.

Great Gold is in Truckee's "Pioneer Commerce Center," away from the historic downtown

Kirksey says Great Gold's off-the-tourist-track location in Tahoe hasn't been a problem. If anything, he says, it's been an asset, as it has plenty of parking and allows locals in the surrounding neighborhoods to go out to dinner without searching for parking in Truckee's busy historic downtown area. While he initially had reservations about the location, he thinks that because most people drive everywhere in Truckee, unlike in San Francisco, the location isn't as important. (And the fact that it has Truckee's only restaurant bocce ball court doesn't hurt, either).

Despite that, downtown Truckee remains the go-to destination for most visitors seeking an evening of dinner and drinks. And thanks to feedback Kirksey describes as "super positive" and "flourishing," plus a skilled staff, the duo are opening a new restaurant in late summer in a more central space on Donner Pass Road. The new restaurant, to be called Tangerine, will have a "classic French bistro feel" and is near popular downtown restaurants like Burger Me and Old Town Tap. It’ll be the first French restaurant in Truckee and one of only a few in north Lake Tahoe, joining Soule Domain in Kings Beach and Le Bistro in Incline Village.

"I hope we’re adding to the pizza scene," Kirksey says of Great Gold. Only time will tell what impact it can have on the French scene, too.

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