Hot Meal: Ironside

J. Birdsall

Ironside's interior marks the juxtaposition of manly and vintage.

​Not two blocks from AT&T Park, it was opening day of sorts. District spinoff Ironside opened for breakfast and lunch today (happy hour and dinner starts next month, reportedly). By 12:15 a line snaked from the counter to the sidewalk; half an hour later, it'd shrunk by half.

Spread over two floors in the 1913 Chronicle Books building (it was the machine shop for a factory specializing in warships during WWI), the loft space is all exposed brick and splintery wood, with swaths of gunmetal blue, Danish modern tables and chairs in teak, and a huge retro billboard hyping beer. In other words, a solidly manly vibe that honors the building's past.

J. Birdsall

Flammenkuchen to go: Instantly devourable.

​The lunch menu is strictly of the moment: meticulously flat-crust pizzas (in 9- and 11-inch configurations), salads, sandwiches. Flammenkuchen flatbread (an adaptation of an Alsatian quiche-like tart -- $11 for the 9-inch) was delicious -- a crust as thin and brittle like some gargantuan Pop chip, smeared with crème frâiche, dotted with globs of caramelized onions (they tasted a bit like ale) and unselfconsciously fatty lardons of smoky bacon. We couldn't stop eating.

A porchetta sandwich ($9) was slightly less lovable, if only because its inspiration seems to have been a turkey on white. Not content to be merely soft and slightly fatty, the thin slices of roasted pork sort of melded with mayo and melted scamorza cheese in a pale, seriously rich stratum.

Ironside 680A Second St. (at Townsend), 896-1127. Mon.-Fri. 8 a.m.-4 p.m. (for coffee); lunch is Mon.-Fri. 11 a.m.-2 p.m.