It seems like the East Bay pizza scene grows every week. This time, a new location of the Sliver Pizzeria chain has opened in Oakland. The website calls the newest shop Sliver Valdez because of its address at 2300 Valdez Street near the intersection of 23rd Street in Uptown. The website What Now San Francisco first reported almost a year ago that Sliver had nailed down that space. According to an Instagram post, Sliver Valdez started welcoming customers about two weeks ago, offering customers a free pizza on September 10th. “We are so proud to reveal our New SLIVER design. We wanted to create a new space where our customers can enjoy great food & drinks with their loved ones,” the post reads.
Sliver Valdez. Photo Credit: @sliverpizzeria/Instagram
If you’re not familiar with Sliver Pizzeria, it’s the spin-off of the iconic Berkeley cheese shop, The Cheese Board Collective, which opened at Vine and Shattuck in 1967 and would later morph into a bakery and pizzeria. The first Sliver-branded pizzeria opened a few blocks down on Shattuck in 2013. As for the name, Berkeleyside reported in 2018, “those early Cheese Boarders were novice pizza makers and didn’t always slice equally. To make up for smaller slices, they’d throw in a little extra sliver to make up the difference. And soon enough, what began as an effort to balance out portions became an established signature touch.” The move has become so beloved that it has been carried over to several other East Bay pizzerias that also throw in the extra sliver.
Sliver Valdez. Photo Credit: @sliverpizzeria/Instagram
Just as it did when it first opened, the original location still only offers one vegetarian pizza per day with a sourdough crust. Sliver now operates five locations with two in Berkeley, two in Oakland, and one in Danville. Sliver Valdez has a pizza of the day available as a whole, half, or in slices, but it also has other menu options, which include four other types of pies, a salad of the day, and several sides, like waffle fries, veggie nachos, and corn on the cob. It’s open every day from 11 a.m.-10:30 p.m.
Sliver Valdez. Photo Credit: @sliverpizzeria/Instagram
Sliver is also in the process of adding three new locations in North Oakland, Fremont, and Lafayette, but there’s no word yet on any timelines.
