Another hospitality sucker punch to the gut — Bertha’s Pizza has closed its bright yellow doors. Wapping Wharf is in trouble. The lingering threat of the shipping containers being axed and the restaurants having to move into more permanent homes probably isn’t helping. But really, it’s VAT. It’s the tax on everything that is strangling our independent restaurants. The team from Bertha’s haven’t said exactly why they’ve closed, but I’d be willing to bet that the finances played a part. I know people who have their own hospitality businesses in Bristol who are working three days a week in London for someone else just to stay afloat. It’s not sustainable. I don’t know how many businesses will have to close before the government do something. Does anyone here have a direct route into parliament? I’d like to have a word. Meanwhile, sign the VAT’S The Problem petition. If you can afford to support The Bristol Sauce, that would be great, but this week I’d honestly rather you went and spent the money in an independent restaurant. Without them I’ll be jobless anyway!
When the building that housed Bertha’s Pizza was built, in 1820, as a stable for the nearby prison, the concept of pizza was decidedly foreign in the UK. Now, a Bristol without Bertha’s seems equally so. The Neapolitan-style sourdough heavyweights fired their last pies on Saturday, marking the end of ten years of exemplary Bristol hospitality.
Bertha’s was named after the resident mammoth pizza oven, which itself went through a few iterations. The original, a Sheffield Steel wood-fired oven, started in the back garden of owners Graham and Kate. After much experimentation with the dough, toppings, firing and everything in between, Bertha 2.0 was built in situ in the back of a bright yellow Land Rover at the start of 2014. Tours around markets, festivals and pop-ups in Bristol and beyond followed. Graham, Kate and their kids moved from London to Bristol in 2014, in hope of establishing a permanent restaurant.
The bricks-and-mortar establishment came two years later, in 2016; the same year that the mobile pizza operation was named as one of the top 25 pizzerias in the UK by the Sunday Times. Quite a feat from the back of a Land Rover. Bertha 3.0 was built, no sign on her smooth mosaic shell of the 500 degree inferno she contained. Bertha’s opened on Gaol Ferry Steps in August of 2016, one of the first restaurants in the new Wapping Wharf development. Bertha’s was not the first pizzeria in the city to slow ferment a fantastically chewy, blistered sourdough base, but they quickly became a clear favourite. They made one thing, and they made it exceptionally well.
From then on, it was a near constant stream of everything that Bristol hospitality prides itself on. Bertha’s frequently collaborated with neighbours and those further flung, creating pizzas with the likes of Wilsons, Box-E, Ethicurean, Squeezed, Alp Mac, Gambas, Bokman, Danny’s Burgers, Big Nath’s, Pukka Peacock and many more.
The team supported countless charities over the years, raising thousands for the likes of Fareshare, The Mazi Project, South and East Bristol Foodbank and Blood Cancer UK. The latter fundraising event, held in April 2025, saw the return of Sam and Beccy Leach (previously the operators of beloved restaurant Birch) to Bristol to roast chickens in the pizza oven. Graham’s said that was one of his personal highlights from the last ten years. Raising money for charity was as baked into the Bertha’s operation as the long ferment of the dough.
Then there’s the ecosystem that surrounded Bertha’s. Though ideas were drawn from all over the globe — kimcheese, Philly cheesesteak and even an Ethiopian-inspired creation at a giro — most of the ingredients used were local. Not because it was cool or trendy, but because to Graham and Kate and the team it felt like the right thing to do. They cared. They cared a lot about the people they worked with too, and can count many offshoots among their legacy. GruffleTops, Midnight Pizza and Madly Gelato were all formed by ex-Bertha’s team members. One of their first chefs, George, just opened toy (sic) in Paris and another chef Jack is now at Rambutan in London. Miguel, front of house manager for many years, now runs the wonderful Food Tours of Bristol, on which Bertha’s was a regular stop.
But Bertha’s will perhaps be remembered most fondly for the aforementioned giros; evenings in which those in the know would book out a table and the chefs would be given complete creative freedom to serve whatever they wanted, providing it was on a pizza. These one-off creations would be called out and whichever table was first to raise their hands and shout (providing they had finished their previous pizza) would get it. The giros were chaotic, fun, sociable and in Bristol at least, incredibly unique.
After surviving Covid, the Bertha’s team diversified and started making high-quality frozen pizzas in early 2024. These have since been stocked in nearly 40 suppliers in Bristol and the surrounding area. Two of the pizzas have won one star great taste awards, and the frozen dough balls from which you can make your own pizzas have won two stars.
In a post on Instagram, the owners shared a goodbye:
“Over half a million pizzas, an unreasonable amount of flour, some very late nights, some offensively early mornings and more washing up than any sensible person should ever volunteer for.
Along the way there were some very loud giro nights and some fairly questionable ideas that somehow became very good pizzas. I’m looking at you, Umami Bomb — carbs on carbs for the win.
We’ve made plenty of mistakes, but we’re pleased to say we held the line on at least one thing: not a single Hawaiian made it onto the menu.
Mostly, though, we just want to say thank you.
Thank you to everyone who came through our bright yellow doors. Whether you came once, once a week, brought your kids, celebrated something, drank one too many beers, argued about whether the crusts were the best bit, or simply told someone else they should give us a try — you kept the whole slightly improbable thing going.
Thank you to everyone Wapping Wharf for making a collection of shipping containers by the harbour feel like a proper community, and a special place to spend ten years.
And most of all, thank you to every person who worked at Bertha’s. You brought the energy, graft, humour, kindness and occasional chaos that made the place what it was. We’re immensely grateful to all of you.
We’re incredibly proud of what we built, and very sad to say goodbye.”
Bertha’s may be closed, but the legacy will live on and the team, the spirit and the pizzas remembered in conversations for many years to come. Some will say Bertha’s was just a pizza restaurant, but it was so much more than that. It was the epitome of Bristol hospitality, a dream that came to fruition that impacted so many lives for the better, and an example of one thing done very well for over a decade.
All words and photos by Meg Houghton-Gilmour
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