Sometimes the only thing you want with your pizza is beer, maybe a cocktail. Since their opening last spring, U Street Pizza has only been able to offer designer sodas, to go along with their designer pizzas.
Cue the intro music. They are now offering what they call “pizza-friendly” cocktails and wines along with a selection of West Coast beers to complement the menu of pizza, salads, seasonal sides and dessert.
The U Street Pizza team collaborated with beverage consultant and Future Gin co-founder Mary Bartlett on a distinctive cocktail list which highlights California-based, woman-owned and/or BIPOC producers, resulting in drinks that pair as perfectly with a clam pie and a caesar salad as they do with risotto rice pudding.
There’s the deliciously named Free Parking with fresh-pressed watermelon juice, orange wine and pisco as well as the Oaxacan Summer featuring mezcal, pamplemousse, Amaro Angeleno and lemon.
You can end your evening with Caffee 1749 with Appleton Estate Rum, maple syrup, Luxardo Maraschino, Fernet Branca, chocolate bitters and cold brew coffee.
Or perhaps the Pizzalada? This is U Street’s take on the Michelada using U Street’s pizza sauce and Madewest Brewing Co.’s Ventura Light Domestic Lager, along with housemade fresno hot sauce, fresh pineapple juice and coconut aminos.
U Street’s Dave Castagnetti has fashioned a wine list which highlights small, natural Italian producers and California makers featuring light crisp white, low-tannin and chilled reds and easy-drinking bubbles, along with rose + orange selections.
Logan Bates, U Street’s beer guy, has also selected a well-rounded list of rotating beers celebrating California breweries like Madewest Brewing Co. of Ventura, Smog City Brewing Co. in Torrance, Pizza Port Brewery in Carlsbad, Beachwood Brewing Co. in Garden Grove, Modern Times in San Diego, along with Crown & Hops of Santa Rosa, and Seattle’s Fremont Brewing Company.
U Street Pizza is at 33 Union St, Pasadena, CA. (626) 605-0340. Open Tuesday through Sunday from 4 p.m.-9 p.m. Reservations via Resy and pick-up via Toast. Delivery available through Postmates and Uber Eats.
