Address: 4035 E Ocean View Ave, Suite 400, Norfolk, VA 23518
On the Web: sourstreetpizza.com
You can’t help but notice it as soon as you walk into Sour Street Pizza: a massive 4,000-pound stucco pizza oven constantly emanating 650 degrees of heat from open ‘til close.
Owner Nathan Ingram says the oven, key to the restaurant’s operations, was assembled “in under a week,” after bringing it through the front door piece by piece at the Eat Beach pizzeria.
And boy does it ever deliver. Upon opening its doors in January 2025, Sour Street Pizza has quickly gained a solid reputation among beachgoing visitors and locals for its wood-fired pizzas, meatballs, salads and other goodies tailor-made for an apres-beach chowdown.
Ingram’s favorites?
“Pepperoni’s number one. The margherita sells a lot, and the white pie with toppings—that’s really good,” he says. He keeps all pizzas at one perfect size to maintain consistency and quality.
“It’s the perfect size for our oven,” he says.
Built With Intention
Everything on the menu is carefully selected by Ingram and his team.
“We use organic flour from Utah,” he says. “We use San Marzano tomatoes from the region. That’s Reggiano… not cheap. It’s good stuff.”
Ingram’s journey from IT sales guy to pizzamaker started during lockdown.
“I got into pizza over COVID,” he tells VisitNorfolk. “I started making sourdough bread and sourdough pizza on the Big Green Egg. The pizzas were coming out really good, and I decided to buy the food truck and quit my job.”
Eventually the truck became so popular that he decided to go full brick and mortar at the beginning of this year, settling deliberately in East Beach.
“I grew up like five minutes down the street,” he says. “There’s not many restaurants around here, and we’re right by the beach.”
His time slinging pies outside COVA Brewing — “We were there every Thursday. And then some weekends, some weeks we were there for three days.” — built the local rapport that made the brick‑and‑mortar an absolute must.
Ingram and his crew begin stretching dough at 7:30 each morning. From there, wood-fired heat meets a well-honed technique, with each pizza spending just a precious few minutes in the 650-degree heat.
As he carefully moves a pizza around in the oven, he uses clock speak to describe the pie’s position. “If it’s really hot in here, I’m at like 3 o’clock… Right now, it’s like 6 o’clock, which is good. Right at the end, if it hasn’t gotten that nice golden brown, it goes a little closer to the flame.”
For Ingram, every slice is carefully considered.
“The dough is science, but you have to know what to look for. It varies from day to day. You can’t just say, ‘bake one minute.’ Some days it takes a little longer. Some days, you have to be able to look at it and tell.”
Sour Street’s crew of 15 helps bring his vision to life. And, of course, where would any pizza joint be without its fans?
“Everybody eats pizza,” he says. “We have a very diverse clientele.”
In the end, Ingram says, “This is not a chain. We’re trying to make the best pizza, and then we price it accordingly. Most places are trying to run a business without the passion for their pizza. We’re trying to do that too, but we start with the best product.”
And with its new home in East Beach, right around the corner from Norfolk’s sand and surf, Sour Street Pizza fits like a glove.
