Singing the Praises of Mr. Singh’s Curry Pizza 

By Sean Rinn

Garry Singh is the owner of a bold new Sunset District restaurant specializing in a unique fusion of flavors – curry pizza. 

While it’s not a traditional culinary combination, Singh hopes one day Indian pizza will become a classic, enough so that Mr. Singh’s Curry Pizza can expand into a franchise in the Bay Area. 

“It was my dream since it was my first job in America,” Singh said. “It was always my dream to bring Indian flavor into pizza.” 

Singh’s father influenced his cooking dream when he came to America from Punjab, India in 1990 to work. Eventually, Singh and the rest of his family reunited with his father in 2005, moving to Fremont where he spent his teenage years. Sometimes after school, Singh would help his dad who worked at Mountain Mike’s Pizza. 

“My dad’s dream was to open his own restaurant when we came here in the USA,” he said. 

Unfortunately, Singh’s father passed away when Singh was only 16. Shortly after, Singh dropped out of high school to commit his life to the dream he shared with his father of opening a pizza restaurant .

Growing up, Singh’s father would take him and his brother around to restaurants, sometimes not even ordering anything, just to take note of how restaurants looked, operated and felt like. Years later, that seems to have paid off. Commuting every day from Fremont, Singh is happy his dad may be watching from afar. 

“He’s always watching from somewhere,” Singh said. 

After Mountain Mike’s, Singh gained experience with Dominoes and Pizza Hut before transitioning from pizza to Indian cuisine. He worked for his cousin at Mehfil Indian Cuisine in downtown San Francisco over the course of seven years. Singh spent that time honing his craft of Indian cooking while also learning how to run a restaurant. 

“I used to work from cooking to bartending, to waiter – just running around,” he said. “I wanted to do better, and I want to learn, you know? I learned slowly to be a bartender and then worked my way back to working in the kitchen, making food, preparing food, all the stuff.” 

At only 22, Singh did it. He opened up his own Indian restaurant in Daly City, Five Rivers Indian Cuisine. During his time at Five Rivers, Singh found enjoyment in experimenting with recipes for family meals, including Indian chicken wings and making pizza with curry sauces. 

“I used to make pizza for my staff. Sometimes friends would come over and they tried it, and that’s how I slowly came up with the recipes to mix Indian and Italian and come up with something new,” Singh said. “One day we made this masala pizza with the tikka sauce and it was good then everybody liked it and it was like, ‘OK, we are going to make this pizza.’ If you look online, the chicken tikka masala pizza is our top selling pizza!” 

On how the flavor combinations were made, Singh claims it was as simple as he “was just having fun.” While Singh is very proud of the tikka masala pizza, he continues having fun with his recipes by teasing a potential lamb curry and shrimp curry pizza in the future. He also hopes to transform the restaurant soon into a sports bar. 

“That’s what the plan is. We’re going to make it a sports bar,” Singh said, “I want to grow here.” 

Standing in the way of Singh’s journey to transform his restaurant into a bustling sports bar and future Bay Area franchise is more than just obtaining a liquor license, which is currently being addressed. The biggest adversary to Mr. Singh’s achieving franchise status is a familiar foe to many restaurateurs who try to operate in San Francisco – suffocating costs. 

“We are finally starting to get more customers, but when you have a limited business, it’s very hard to pay all these bills which is very challenging for me right now,” he said. “Everything is expensive. Even the trash press is expensive. But hopefully in the next year or two, business is very good, and we are getting more customers.” 

Despite the difficulty Singh and his family have faced with brutal Bay Area costs, his positivity and optimism overpower his responses about how hard it is to pay for everything required to keep doors open. 

“I’ve done so much hard work in this life, and so I’m still doing it,” Singh said. 

Despite the cost of doing business, the hard work Singh and his crew put into opening a new restaurant is paying off. Since opening in October, Singh and restaurant manager Rebecca are proud to see their online presence grow, especially with continuously improving Yelp ratings and reviews. 

On the menu, Singh is most proud of the tikka masala pizza and their Achari and Tandoori wings. It was the chicken wings that started it all. Before tinkering with curry sauces on pizza, it was the Achari and Tandoori wings that Singh would put out in the buffet at Five Rivers that attracted positive attention from regulars making him believe he could successfully blend Indian and Italian flavors for a new restaurant. 

Mr. Singh’s Curry Pizza is located at 2241 Judah St.