Beginning June 16, 2025, Tamien Station Electric Train service temporarily suspended. Info: caltrain.com/status.
With another blog due, I tagged along with some coworkers as they celebrated a birthday. Their destination? San Mateo’s Rise Woodfire, located conveniently inside the San Mateo Station downtown, providing transit-oriented deliciousness to all who enter. We walked into the large, well-lit space and ordered a pile of pizzas, to be quickly met by our appetizers as the wood-fired ovens prepared our main course. Cornbread isn’t exactly a pizzeria staple, but it was fluffy and moist without being too close to cake, with a slight hint of spiciness, and a good mix of corn kernels and jalapeños, with a crock of honey butter served alongside celebrating that blessed union of two universally beloved condiments. The burrata was more traditional, rich and milky, served with remarkably fresh tomatoes and a strong pesto. Both made for a pleasant diversion until the main event arrived.
Five pizzas hit the table, covering all corners of the pizza spectrum. Given the fascinating range of flavors available, I’ll start with the traditional and get weirder from there. The Carne could easily have been a standard meat lover’s pizza, but the pepperoni was well-cupped, and the sausage was excellent, porky and properly seasoned. The Artichoke and Spinach was (unsurprisingly) far more veggie forward, strong on arugula with more of the excellent pesto from the burrata. The Brunch was strongly eggy, due to the egg baked right on top of the pie. Thankfully, its best friend bacon was there in abundance to help it live up to its potential, while the onion provided the bite needed to keep everything from getting too heavy.
The Pesto Lemon Shrimp pizza managed to do shrimp right, which must be harder than it seems as many places will either not attempt such hubris or serve a hard, dry little mistake that no one wants. Clearly, Rise has cracked the code, as these were juicy and lovely, seasoned to perfection and well complemented by roast garlic and chives. Finally, the Medjool Date and Chevre stepped out to shock both sides of the tired pineapple on pizza debate. Who new dates belonged on pizza? These guys, providing a slightly sweet pie that was sophisticated, light and tasty and that I have never seen anywhere else. And all of this happened on a crust that had a satisfying bite and chew and a good crunch to close with.
There’s much of this menu we did not get to, and I look forward to finding an excuse to explore more. If you want to do the same, this location couldn’t be more easily accessible by Caltrain unless they moved into the bike car.
Author’s Note: Chew Chew Train is a series on delicious destinations near Caltrain Stations written by Caltrain Public Information Officer and long-time Peninsula resident Dan Lieberman. All costs associated are paid by participants, Caltrain is not paying for the food purchased. If there’s a restaurant near one of our stations that you want us to review, contact us on social media and let us know where to go next!