Sign Placement: 2012!

We are over-the-moon to be celebrating our fifth anniversary in Pleasant Hill on Wednesday, February 7th 2018! We can’t believe it was five short years ago that we opened our doors to the fantastically welcoming Pleasant Hill community.

In the last five years, we’ve developed a tight-knit crew of employee owners, participated in loads of community events like Art, Jazz, and Wine and Blues and Brews, hosted a holiday food drive, organized employee-owner volunteer days at the Contra Costa County food bank, hosted more than 30 community fundraisers, and sponsored two different art contests (2017 saw 27 art contest winners from Pleasant Hill!!!). Basically, the Pleasant Hill community has totally embraced us and we are hugging back hard!!

We love it here and we are super excited to be turning 5!

We are trying out a brand new pizza at all four of our locations! Our Butternut Squash pizza is a completely and totally delish combination of roasted butternut squash, goat cheese, spinach, red onion, fresh parsley, and mozzarella cheese. It’s available stuffed or thin crust for a limited time only.

This pizza is the brainchild of employee owner Justin Lassen. He credits the pizza to “the healthy appetites of the San Ramon employee owners” who helped sample lots of trial runs (poor babies!). We are super excited about this new pie (goat cheese in the stuffed pizza is out-of-control!).

The walls of our restaurants are filled with one-of-a-kind Zachary’s Pizza Art. We held our first art contest in the late 1980′s and the tradition has continued every couple of years since. We love our art and the artists. We are excited to be able to use our blog as a medium for our community to get to know our artists better. Meet Stew Ellington!

For the first 30 years of my life, art was hugely important to me. At one time I had wanted to be an artist for a living. I made art in all sorts of media and in 2001 earned a master of fine arts degree in painting. After earning my degree, however, I completely lost interest in painting and avoided it for about 15 years. In fact, the poster I made for the Zachary’s contest is the first painting I’ve done since grad school! In the meantime, I’ve filled in the creative gaps of my life with photography and writing; I’ve designed and published two cocktail recipe books, among other creative projects.

I had wanted to enter the Zachary’s poster contest for years but could never think of an image I wanted to use. Plus, I was loath to pick up a paintbrush again for fear I would have lost my skills! Finally, it occurred to me I should just paint something I’m passionate about and make it work for the contest, and I happen to love vintage Italian Vespa scooters. The idea to create the front wheel out of a Zachary’s deep-dish pizza popped into my head and, eureka! I was on my way. I crossed my fingers and hoped I could still pull off a reasonably convincing painting after a 15-year hiatus.

I love how the Italian-ness of the scooter reflects the Italian(ish)-ness of pizza. I had a great time creating my poster in the style of vintage Vespa ads from Italy, with lots of bright, primary colors and cartoonish renderings. The official slogan of Vespa, “Not just a scooter… a lifestyle,” lent itself well to referencing Zachary’s pizza and providing a title for my piece. I’m really glad I was able to break my painting dry-spell with one that was so purely fun to do. Thanks, Zachary’s, for the opportunity and for years of awesome pizza! I’m so glad to finally be a part of this community event.

Okay, kale lovers, we heard you! Our Kale salad is back in Oakland and Berkeley. This perfectly refreshing salad has kale (of course!), feta, matchstick carrots, green apples, cucumber, and roasted pumpkin seeds. It’s tossed in our house-made Tahini dressing. It’s light, refreshing, and tasty. AND it’s a perfect way to get some veggies in before moving on to PIZZA!

We’ve got two in-demand specials coming back TODAY!

The ever-popular Hot Link pizza special is back in Oakland and Berkeley! This crew and customer favorite is stuffed with sliced Louisiana Hot Link sausage, fresh cilantro and mozzarella cheese. It’s a little bit spicy and a lot-a bit YUM.

In Pleasant Hill and San Ramon, our Hawaiian pizza is back in action! This pie has Canadian bacon, pineapple, green onion and pepper jack cheese. Regional Manager, Luis Ibarra, whipped up this tasty spin on traditional Hawaiian pizza and it is top notch!

Both specials are available stuffed or thin crust for a limited time only!

Twelve of our awesomely energetic employee owners participated in San Ramon’s Bah Humbug 5K Run and Walk! They ran, they walked and they had a blast doing it!

Rewards were given out for best group costume. The Grinch Who Stole Zachary’s and our Who-Crew came in second place!

Long time employee owner, and Assistant Manager in our San Ramon and Pleasant Hill region, Lobsang Dharchen, said, “I am proud to represent my company… Doing (the) 5K with my cowokers feels like I am having fun with such a great team!”

We are super proud of this fab running crew! Keep your eyes peeled for them at the 2018 Oakland Running Festival!

Closed – Christmas Eve

Closed – Christmas Day

Closed – New Year’s Day

New Year’s Eve – Closing Early (8:30 Dine In, 9pm Take Out)

Zachary’s celebrated the holidays at Lake Chalet in Oakland! We ate, we laughed, we took too many photo booth pics and we danced the night away! It’s always a blast to see everyone gussied up for a special event. We are truly lucky to work with so many AMAZING employee owners!

We can’t think of a better way to celebrate nature’s Winter-time treats than with a brand new salad! Our Oakland and Berkeley menus will be featuring the Pomegranate Persimmon Salad (say that five times fast!) for the next several weeks! This beautiful salad sits on a bed of arugula and comes with shaved Parmesan cheese and our house-made shallot vinaigrette. The sweetness of the persimmon is a perfect match for the peppery arugula and the tart pomegranate. We are excited to try out a brand new salad and we hope you are too!