Willow Street Pizza is one of those places I never think of visiting until I’m standing right outside its door. This South Bay mini chain isn’t remarkable in any particular way, but it’s consistently above average and always sends me away satisfied with my choice to eat there. All of the Willow Street restaurants are also dog-friendly, which is a big plus in my book.

One afternoon in November, my wife Shawn and I found ourselves being dragged around Los Gatos by our two pint-sized dogs. We were finished with our primary objective – visiting every interesting shrub and fire hydrant the city had to offer – and so we moved on to locating a place to have lunch. We needed somewhere with outdoor seating, patio heaters, and tolerance of pooches. It didn’t take us long to narrow down our choice to Willow Street Pizza.

As we approached the restaurant, we noticed that there were plenty of open tables on the patio. Excellent. Shawn went inside to speak with the hostess and get us seated… and instead came out with a pager. “It’ll be 20 to 25 minutes” Shawn said, not trying too hard to hide her irritation. I looked around at all the empty tables as if to say, “Are they on crack?” Shawn shrugged. I shrugged. We waited.

Look at all those happy, invisible patrons. No wonder there’s a wait.

” I looked around at all the empty tables as if to say, ‘Are they on crack?’ “

20 minutes went by in a flash, with “flash” being defined as the amount of time it takes a set of human buttocks to go completely numb due to sitting on cold bricks while waiting outside a restaurant. Mercifully, the pager went off around then and we were whisked away to a nice, clean table underneath a toasty heat lamp.

Our server swooped by promptly, apologizing for the wait and setting us up with fresh bread. Well, that’s more like it. My Like-O-Meter had been dipping dangerously, but now it was working its way back up to a more reasonable level. I was barely through tearing off a piece of bread when our server stopped by again to take our drink order. Shawn chose a made-to-order ginger ale, and I went for the Shipyard Smashed Blueberry ale featured on the seasonal beverage board.

It was like getting wasted on breakfast muffins.

Actually no, it wasn’t ale… it was a malt beverage. Well it sure tasted like ale, and a good one at that. It had outstanding blueberry flavor, but not in a weird way. And sheesh, 9.0% alcohol? That’s a strong one. While I was engrossed in the flavor of my blueberry malt thing, Shawn ordered us a Gorgonzola salad with cranberries and a pepperoni and olive pizza. Perfect.

Gorgonzola and cranberries go surprisingly well together.

It didn’t take longs for our food to arrive, and it was very good. That beer though, wow! Yeah, pretty strong.. Big bottle too, 22oz. The gorgonzogla salad was surprisingly good for just being a salad. I mean, it’s a salad right? Who notices things like a salad? but anyway we liked it. And there’s cranberries in it! Oh yeah, that’s in the name. Loving this beer.

Very slightly oily but extremely flavorful. Overall a great pie.

we got the pizza when I was halfway through my ale. Really tastes like blueberries. no not that I meant the beer. Hey when did the pizza get here? It was fairly shimple but very nicely made, and I’m sure someone made it by hand. real good that pizza with good crust. Man. and this beer still isnt empty. here Shawn you need to take the car keys. WOO has someone turned up the patio heater I think? lol

well we had to wait while to eat but we finally did so great! THe blueberry ale was one of the best salads i’ve had, and the cranberry piza was good with my beer Hey whos dogs are these. i rate Willow Street Pizza pretty good but not acceptional, defently worth going back. omg this ale has BULEBERRIES

Willow Street Pizza
Multiple locations around the Bay Area
www.willowstreet.com

Willow Street’s Los Gatos location is a nice place to be, provided you can get seated.