Anna's Pizza Joint Verified listing

Anna’s Pizza Joint in Belmont Shore has officially opened, making it the newest addition to Long Beach’s wildly growing pizza game. When it comes to Long Beach, pizza shops tend to carry stories with them. It can be The 4th Horseman’s metal and craft beer roots. Or Pizza Parlor’s search for the perfect dough in a side of town lacking local options. Or how Due Fiori’s pizza is really an extension of a pizza lover’s pop-up a la Chef Waldo Stout…

For Curtis Fullerton, the opening of Anna’s Pizza Joint in Belmont Shore is the culmination of a vision that began two decades ago. And, like many Long Beach stories, it begins near the ocean.

Curtis traces the idea back roughly 20 years, when a visit to the rightfully lauded Pizza Port in San Diego sparked something.

“I went there and thought, ‘I want to open a pizza concept,’” Curtis said. “Growing up as a surfer kid here in SoCal, I always wanted something with a beachy vibe.”

At the time, the idea was little more than a dream. Curtis would go on to build Anna’s Joint in Downtown Long Beach, but the idea of a pizza-focused concept never left his mind. That opportunity finally arrived when the Belmont Shore space that would become Anna’s Pizza Joint unexpectedly opened up—or, as Curtis says, “fell into his lap.”

The bones of a restaurant were already there: counters, service areas, equipment. Rather than starting from scratch, Fullerton focused on what he jokingly calls “heavy lipstick”—refreshing the space while building the elements needed for a pizza operation. That meant installing a pizza oven, building out a dough room, and preparing to make dough entirely in-house.

Written and photos by Brian Addison.

For Brian Addison's full feature on Anna's Pizza Joint, click here.