Wood-Fired Pizza Restaurant in Maplewood: Great Idea, Who's Up For It?

A Maplewood resident involved in a Brentwood family business has an idea for a business he’d like to see in Maplewood, but for now, he wants someone else to do it.

Nick Frisella’s family runs Metro Lighting, in Brentwood, and he’d like to see a family-oriented pizza restaurant open up in Maplewood.

“It would use local fresh ingredients,” he said. “You could find a farm that would grow the tomatoes, herbs, garlic, basil, oregano, those kinds of things locally. It would have a wood-fired oven, similar to the one at Twin Oaks.”

He said he grew up with restaurants in O’Fallon, like Pantera’s and Ground Round, where kids could hang out and play video games and the adults could get a good meal.

Frisella talked with Foundation Grounds co-owner Pedro Abbate about the idea, “because he’s been in the restaurant industry his whole life, and he’s been in Maplewood for quite a while.” Abbate said starting a business in Maplewood is a pretty streamlined process.

Frisella concluded that the restaurant he has in mind would need to be owner-operated, with maybe one or two employees to serve and do some of the cooking, and for now, it’s not what he wants to do.

“The more I looked at it, the less interesting it became for me, because we’ve got the family business, Metro Lighting,” he said. “It was something that I thought that I could start and then have somebody else run for me, and that’s just not an option.”

But he said he thinks it’s still a great idea. “I also think if someone was motivated and wanted to make it happen they could.”