There’s something mesmerizing, exciting, and simultaneously soothing about watching pizza being tossed by hand. It’s a spectacle that customers are treated to upon visiting Spinning Dough, a charmingly decorated, open-kitchen pizzeria that opened in West Oakland in February 2017. Every pizza is based on this hand-tossed crust, made using dough that owner Jeff Chin creates from scratch.

 

Chin’s first brush with the pizza business was when he was in college in San Francisco, where he was born and raised. He started working for extra cash as a pizza delivery driver. Then the owner of the pizzeria asked if he wanted to learn to make pizza, too. But Chin spent the majority of his career — 15 years — working in health care reimbursement. That changed when the Bay Area branch of the company he was working for closed. “So, I was like, ‘Hey, let’s open a restaurant,'” he said.

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... And while plenty of customers order their pizza to go, Spinning Dough also offers a pleasant environment for dining in. Chin designed and remodeled the dining room himself. The walls are decorated with rustic wooden fence boards that Chin bought on Craigslist. Lamps with exposed bulbs hang from the ceiling, while a Cinzano clock adds Italian flair. Guests can also relax on the dog-friendly outdoor patio, complete with murals on the walls and picnic benches. And most importantly, guests dining in can watch Chin toss their pizza by hand — a reassuring reminder of the delicious pizza that’s about to arrive at the table.