Bravo Pizza, an Excelsior staple serving deep-dish slices and Italian-American fare since 1963, reopened on Thursday after being shuttered for two months. And the decades-old pizzeria is under new management.
The place is due for a comeback, said Sam Hernandez, the new co-owner of Bravo who bought the restaurant with his best friend Jason Yu in December 2025. The duo are well aware that Bravo is flooded with “break-up posts” reviews on Yelp from disappointed erstwhile diners over the past year, and they are ready to turn things around.
“We’re gonna give them a good love letter,” Hernandez said on Wednesday evening, after finishing a taste test of their new lemon pepper and garlic parmesan chicken wings. The chef, Jimmy Prokopos, is the son of Peter Prokopos, a former owner of Bravo. “We’re gonna invite them back,” Hernandez said of the customers.
Hernandez, a 43-year-old Excelsior native, and Yu, a 34-year-old who grew up in Chinatown and moved to the Excelsior about 13 years ago, said they are trying to preserve the old flavors of the 64-year-old pizzeria with a new twist.
Pizzas will be made from the same two-pound dough that defined Bravo as the pioneer in San Franciscan-style deep-dish pizza, but with a garlic-crust option. Along with the two flavors of chicken wings they were trying Wednesday night, they will roll out two other flavors, buffalo and honey garlic butter.
Bravo Pizza, an Excelsior staple, reopened on Jan. 22. Photo by Xueer Lu. Jan. 16, 2026.
There will soon be a new pink gumball machine in the place of the old pink gumball machine — just like the one Hernandez used to put a quarter in to watch the little gumball fall.
Sitting in the empty restaurant that they hoped would fill with customers the next day, Yu and Hernandez couldn’t help but reminisce about how they got here.
Hernandez recalled a night last fall when he got a call from his cousin, who had stopped by Bravo for a slice after the 49ers game. “He looked at the place and he was like ‘this place looks like a dump,’”Hernandez said, recalling the conversation. His cousin told him that he went in and asked the owner at the time if he would be interested in selling. “‘He said yes,’” Hernandez’s cousin told him.
Hernandez, who lives just a few blocks away, said he “flew over here” to get confirmation that the store was indeed up for sale.
And the second thing? Calling up his best friend Jay (Jason Yu) who he always described as “ambitious” and a “hard worker.”
At first, Yu said, he was “excited” but the idea was also “scary.”
After all, he did previously spend $200,000 trying to open a soft-serve matcha ice cream shop in the Mission District. Yu had to abandon the ice cream concept due to mounting permitting and legal costs.
But Hernandez, who had been Yu’s “ear” during the whole matcha fiasco, was able to convince Yu, who once swore in the news that he would never open a business in the city.
“Bro, everything’s grandfathered in. We don’t have to do nothing to the place,” Hernandez told Yu. “All of the licenses, all of the permits stay with us. All we gotta do is come in and start working.”
Yu trusted Hernandez. It brings him a bit of comfort knowing that this time, he doesn’t have to start the place from scratch and Bravo Pizza has already made a name for itself.
“I feel like this place has a lot of history and has always been here for a long time,” Yu said. “So I was like, maybe I’ll give it another chance because I’m still in San Francisco.”
Jason Yu (left) and Sam Hernandez (right), new owners of Bravo Pizza, were excited for the shop’s reopening. Photo by Xueer Lu. Jan. 21, 2026.
On the eve of the opening, the duo seemed confident and excited. They have a few ideas: giving out a lot of free samples to customers after the Thursday soft opening, offering free slices to businesses nearby to let them know this is a good lunch spot, and a free pizza for any order of 10 pizzas.
“I mean, America loves a comeback story,” Hernandez said. “We may not be able to give you what your grandma gave you, but we’ll give you something special and it’ll be good.”