Zepeddie’s Pizzeria Returns After Decades-Long Closure

Typically, when a popular business shutters its doors, customers never expect to have that dining experience again. In the case of Zepeddie’s Pizzeria, however, it just took a little patience.

On Nov. 1, the Zepsa family will reopen the New York-style pizza joint that they first opened in 1994 and were forced to sell 25 years ago.

While the neon sign from the original restaurant, which closed in 2001, has been preserved and put back to use, with WWII-era windows nodding to the quaint charm of the old space in lower South End (LoSo), the focus this time around has been on the menu, said Brian Zepsa.

“I think now we are heavily, heavily focused on the quality of what we’re putting out,” Zepsa told Queen City Nerve. “We spent probably close to a year just perfecting our dough and our bread. We’re making everything in-house, fresh daily and we have gone ’round and ’round to really keying in on high-end, local, organic ingredients in everything that we do over there.”

Tradition will play its role in the restaurant’s return, but Zepsa said his team has also been focused on ensuring Zepeddie’s is offering Charlotte residents something new in a city that now has many more pizza options than it did when Zepeddie’s first served Queen City customers.

The menu features authentic New York-style pizza with a few twists.

“I think we’re just offering something a little unique and a little bit different and a little bit fun than your typical pizzeria,” he said. “You’re not going to find your normal meat lovers or veggie and whatnot. We’re trying to do something a little bit different and at the same time, stay the course with high-end ingredients.”

The two-day grand opening celebration on Nov. 1-2 will feature raffle giveaways, a magician, face-painting, a build-your-own cannoli bar, a stromboli-eating competition an other family-friendly activities.

For the Zepsa family, it will mark a second go at things in a city that they’ve watched transform in myriad ways since the last time they served their signature pizza.

A return to the familiar at Zepeddie’s Pizzeria

When the Zepsa family sold Zepeddie’s in 1999, it wasn’t because business was hurting. Keeping up with running a popular neighborhood spot had just become overwhelming for the family.

The Zepsas own a number of businesses around Charlotte, including Zepsa Construction, which renovated the new space on Nations Crossing Road, and they like to be engrossed in every aspect of those ventures. When the family felt they could no longer put the time into Zepeddie’s that it deserved, they decided to sell it.

“Back then, it was really about timing and being a part of it, we’re not ones to just open something up and let it run,” said Brian, who was in high school and delivering pizzas in his free time during the restaurant’s run in the ’90s. “We’re heavily involved in every aspect of everything and when we can’t be, we don’t like that.”

At the time, the Zepsa family expected to return to the kitchen — ideally the Zepeddie’s kitchen — when the time was right. However, the new owners closed the doors for good in 2001. Knowing that they’d like to revive the restaurant at some point, the Zepsa family immediately claimed the old neon sign upon hearing that it was closing.

“I think we always had in our hearts and minds to revive it one day again,” Brian explained. “It was more of a pause, so to speak.”

There was no real plan or timeline in place to bring Zepeddie’s back, but the way Brian has seen the area grow in the time since Zepeddie’s first opened on Woodlawn Road, he figured, what better time than now?

“What has happened in the LoSo area over the last 30 something years is incredible,” he said. “And we thought now is the right time to give it a try again.”

Brian is spearheading the project, but as was the case in the ’90s, the entire family is involved. Some will be working in the restaurant while others have been brought in as taste-testers to ensure everything is just right.

“We’ve been trying way too much pizza over the last year to bring this all together,” Brian said. “I’m heading things up, but everything we do is always with the family.”

The Zepsa family evolves with the times in new location

To hear Zepsa describe his ambitions for the return of Zepeddie’s, it seems as if the only thing that’s going to be retained from the old space is the name and the trademark sign. Brian’s job now is to make a new way out of the old way.

Though not far from the old location, so much has changed about the area since the restaurant closed that it’s barely recognizable.

“Even though the word ‘LoSo’ had zero meaning back in the ‘90s, the way it does today, it’s still in the general part of Charlotte,” he said. “And with everything going on in that neighborhood, I mean, the growth is crazy. It’s just apartment complex after apartment complex going up over there. And it’s all mostly breweries and whatnot in the area.”

Of course, with memories of spending his high school years delivering pizzas from the Woodlawn location, Brian recognizes the significance of bringing Zepeddie’s back for the old customer base.

But he also knows that the folks who even remember Zepeddie’s are few and far between, as so much of the population has turned over in three decades. Many of the people who now call the neighborhood home were either not alive when Zepeddie’s first opened in 1994 or were living in some other city.

With that in mind, he’s made major updates to the menu. There will be no pizza buffet or salad bar as there was in the old space. Recognizing “the growing demand for convenient yet delicious meals,” the restaurant’s primary focus will be on offering top-notch delivery and takeout.

The menu will include calzones, strombolis, subs, and pizza — both NY-style thin and thick-crust. The Bianca thick-crust pizza, for example, is made with white sauce, Taleggio cheese, freshly sliced pears, chili-infused hot honey, and extra virgin olive oil. The restaurant’s specialty thin-crust pizza, the Big Gabagool, is made with Ezzo cup-and-char pepperoni, capicola, house-made meatballs, mozzarella, and grated Parmesan cheese.

“I think that’s the way that the area is going,” he said. “They don’t want just the normal plain chain thing that everyone can do and they can get around every corner and whatnot,” Brian said. “They want something funky and unusual and different, but at the same time, good for you and doesn’t have all sorts of additives, and this and that in it, and everything else. I just think that’s the cultural change in people, so to speak, from 30 years ago to today.”

Zepeddie’s Pizzeria is located at 4516 Nations Crossing Road. Visit the website to learn more. 

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