January 26, 2023
Opening soon in San Diego's Hillcrest community is HillCrust, a Neapolitan-style pizza & cheesesteak restaurant from two lifelong friends.
Hillcrust Pizza is the product of co-founders Zia Qadiri and Jay Saadat, two longtime childhood friends who have always wanted to open a pizza place together. After 3 years of testing recipes with a priority on authentic ingredients, the duo are nearly ready to unveil their first restaurant.
"My father had a New York restaurant in the Bay Area and I’ve always liked and been intrigued by the industry since childhood," explained HillCrust co-founder Jay Saadat. "Zia's family owned restaurants as well so he has a lot of influence through his brothers growing and perfecting the craft of making unique dishes. We decided to get a pizza place that uses quality ingredients at an affordable price. We specialize in Neapolitan pizza and Philadelphia-style cheesesteaks ('Hilly' cheesesteaks). We make our dough in house using a 5 day fermentation process with 00 flour. We use San Marzano tomatoes from Italy grown in a special region of San Marzano, certified by the Italian government for export. We use quality sirloin steak and original Amoroso rolls for our cheesesteaks."
HillCrust Pizza will grand open on 127 University Avenue in San Diego's Hillcrest on Wednesday, February 1. For more information, follow
HillCrust on Instagram.
