Obituary

Philip De Andrade 
August 23, 1943 to August 15, 2026

Philip “Phil” De Andrade died in his sleep on August 15, 2026, at the age of 83. 

It was fittingly the Assumption of Mary, his good friend, Sarah Davis, noted, the day Catholics believe that Mary, mother of Jesus, was taken up—body and soul—into heaven at the end of her earthly life. 

As a young man De Andrade attended St. Patrick’s Seminary & University in Menlo Park, with the intention of becoming a Catholic priest. On the eve of taking his formal vow to commit to unending obedience to the Archbishop of San Francisco he decided to pursue a different path. In the late-1980s, he began a decades-long association with Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi, working in her congressional offices in San Francisco and Washington, D.C., enthusiastically supporting her campaigns and career, deeply cherishing her and her husband’s friendship. 

Perhaps his largest contribution to community was the co-founding of Goat Hill Pizza in 1975. He pooled his modest savings with four close friends—Joel and Loris Lipski, Ruthann Dickinson, and Karen Clark—to take over a burned-out barbecue joint at the corner of Connecticut and 18th streets. At a time when sit-down dining options were scarce on the Hill, the pizzeria quickly grew into the heart of the neighborhood. 

Under De Andrade’s leadership, Goat Hill garnered a wide reputation for its signature three-day fermented sourdough crust and the family friendly “All You Can Eat Mondays,” at which he frequently, and charismatically, performed as server and generous host. In the early years, the restaurant housed a live goat mascot, Hilda de Anchovy, in its back lot. Last fall, alongside hundreds of Potrero Hillians, he celebrated Goat Hill Pizza’s 50th anniversary by getting a tattoo of Hilda on his forearm.

De Andrade’s Portuguese roots were woven into Goat Hill’s menu, which features “The Portuguese” pizza topped with traditional linguica, a smoke-cured Portuguese pork sausage, black olives, scallions, and garlic. On rare special occasions he’d make malasadas, Portuguese donuts, which he claimed were superior to French beignets.

De Andrade offered the establishment as a place to hold countless civic meetings, including notably for the Potrero Dogpatch Merchants Association, for which he served as president for many years. He rarely declined a request to host a school fundraiser, local history night, neighborhood art show, or political gathering. 

For many young Hill residents, a highlight of the year was to receive a mini slice of pizza from De Andrade on Halloween. Dressed resplendently in a costume he acquired from the San Francisco Opera’s used clothing sale, he’d whirl amongst the crowd of trick-or-treaters, recognizing friends, shouting acknowledgements, and dispensing cheesy joy.

In the 1980s, he ran for the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, when the office was held “at-large,” rather than based on the present district system. Though he didn’t win the election, he maintained a steady interest in and contribution to local politics. In 2000, he was appointed chair of the Power Plant Citizens Advisory Task Force, helping to lead efforts to successfully shutter the polluting Hunters Point and Potrero Power plants. Even here his pizzeria played a key role, with state energy regulators preferring to meet at the restaurant for easy access to the fresh fountain drinks.

For decades before moving to Alameda, De Andrade lived on a houseboat named Moonlight, anchored in Mission Creek Harbor, where he served as board president. He was a fashionable thread in San Francisco’s eclectic, beautifully eccentric fabric, often sporting a stylish Fedora.  He claimed to be a bit of an introvert, but friends and strangers would never know it from his buoyant spirit and generous laugh.

De Andrade followed a simple philosophy: “Living in a community is what gives us our sense of individuality.” 

He held together the many branches of the Rodrigues family: the Kilweins, Gordons, McTeers, Balbis, and the Rodrigues still in Portugal; in Lisbon and on the island of Madeira, where he spent long stretches of time, eventually acquiring citizenship in the country where his parents, Joseph and Mary De Andrade, were born. 

He’ll be interred alongside his parents and grandparents, Edward and Frances Rodrigues. His love of family, continuity, and tradition—including customs in which he no longer believed—nourished his many attachments. His devotion to maintaining ties across generations and geography—and his gift for investing in those relationships with such charm and palpable happiness—made him a beloved presence in many lives.

In addition to Goat Hill Pizza’s co-founder, Joel Lipski, he leaves behind numerous friends and relatives, including his cousin, Jeff Burkholder, and Jeff’s daughter Alma, with whom he shared a home; Mike Monley, a former seminary classmate and Goat Hill co-owner; Missouri Street residents and Goat Hill co-owners Kurt and Debbie Huysentruyt; and Sarah Davis, the pizzeria’s general manager and longtime harbor neighbor.

oOo

Philip De Andrade was a friend. I met him after I launched San Francisco Community Power, which helped install energy efficiency measures at Goat Hill Pizza, a relationship that deepened when we served on the Power Plant Task Force together. I knew him as a thoughtfully buoyant person of faith, willing to question and explore Catholic dogma and enthusiastically debate the latest political happenings. He often wondered whether he was doing enough to fulfill his civic obligations, which he never defined, but they were weighty. 

I accompanied him to a funeral mass – for Clint Reilly, with whom he went to seminary – less than two weeks before he died. As congregants lined up for the priestly blessing, he told me that he refused to take the Eucharist because he didn’t have faith that it was the body of Christ. “It’s not a metaphor,” he told me. “I can’t do something which I don’t believe.

Less than a week before he passed, we had a text exchange in which I told him that my mother-in-law had just been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and likely didn’t have long to live. 

“OMG,” he responded “Is knowing a blessing or a curse?

“I think it might be better to just not wake up one morning…,” I texted back. 

To which I received,  :o)

Goodbye, Philip. You will be deeply missed. 

 – Steven J. Moss