Combining the trends of upcycling food waste and natural wine, along with pizza which never goes out of style, Shuggie’s Trash Pie & Natural Wine has opened its doors in the Mission District.
SFist first heard about this project in its early Kickstarter days in November 2020, when it was aiming to open in a space in North Beach. Fast forward six months, and co-owners/romantic partners Kayla Abe and David Murphy landed on a new and bigger location when the North Beach deal fell through. A year later, and they are finally open in the former home of cheap-margaritas-and-nachos destination Velvet Cantina (3349 23rd Street), which sadly said goodbye in the early pandemic after 14 years in business.
Abe and Murphy have fully transformed the space to the point that it won’t evoke many memories of its former tenant, with bright, monochromatic-designed rooms populated with repainted flea-market finds. There’s a definite Pee-Wee’s Playhouse-meets-pop-art vibe which Abe and Murphy are calling “Hollywood regency meets roller disco” — i.e. highly Instagrammable. The front, yellow-themed, “Cheetah Dining Room” features canary yellow everything, including a lip-shaped sofa, yellow plastic chairs, disco balls, and a cheetah mural. And the back “Green Room” features green booths, hand-shaped chairs, and a mural of… a green lady with octopus arms? There’s also a small bar back there along with the retail wine shop, which they’re calling the “Wine Bodega.”
Photo by Erin Ng via Shuggie’sPhoto by Erin Ng via Shuggie’sPhoto by Erin Ng via Shuggie’s
While Shuggie’s did some pop-ups over the last year and a half that featured round pies, it seems as though they’ve settled on rectangular, thin-crust pizzas their calling “grandma style” on the menu — also, “Trash Pies.” It’s here we find some of the upcycled ingredients Abe and Murphy have promoted previously with their Ugly Pickle Co. farmstand — dough made with whey and spent oat flour (the by-product from oat milk), irregular or surplus produce, and the occasional odd cut of meat like pork trotters. There’s a standard pepperoni pie with honey, too, and two seafood pies — one featuring mussels and trotters, and one featuring salt cod and potato. One pie that may be an ode to the Mission is called El Campeon, and it’s topped with ground beef, serrano chilis, red onion, and Takis. And in tribute to their former pickle business, there’s a Pickle Lady pie, topped with salmon belly conserva, pickle relish, and “dilly double cream.”
You can also get fried pickles as a starter, and in a gesture toward whole-animal cooking, there’s an appetizer of “Buffalo Everything” — fried wings, chicken livers, gizzards, and hearts in Buffalo sauce. See the full menu below.
There’s a margarita on offer in a nod to Velvet Cantina (agave wine?), but otherwise it’s mostly about the natural, organic wines — and if you’re not hip to the trend, the Mission District already has a wine bar/nightclub that is devoted to the stuff.
Shuggie’s has been softly open for a couple of weeks, but it looks like they’re now fully taking reservations on Resy — and walk-ins (up to parties of 4) are welcome in the Green Room, and some tables up front as well.
Shuggie’s Trash Pie & Natural Wine — 3349 23rd Street at Bartlett — Open Tuesday to Thursday, 5 p.m. to 10 p.m.; and Friday and Saturday from 5 p.m. to midnight
