Pizza of The Past: Zepeddie’s Is Back

Opening a new restaurant is hard.  

Opening a new pizza restaurant in a city that teems with options (and their toppings) is harder. But how do you resurrect a pizza place in a new location—after 25 years?

Well, it helps if your family, established with profitable home construction and architectural woodwork companies, already owns the building. It also helps when that building sits at the edge of one of the city’s highest-growth areas. “We’ve had this building since ’91, and we have watched this neighborhood change since then,” says Brian Zepsa, 47, a bearish man with a bald head and long beard. We’re inside at 4516 Nations Crossing Road in LoSo, talking at a table in advance of the Nov. 1 opening.

Zepsa begins to gesture toward himself, as if he’s directing a delivery truck. “(Growth) has just come this way and this way and this way. And then, you know, the Olde Mecklenburgs and all the breweries and the pickleballs and Lower Left (Brewing Co.) right next door here … It’s just beer, nonstop, everywhere. And we were sitting around the table one night as a family of—you know, now, with all the kids and whatnot, there’s 12 of us—and said, ‘You know what, we have this building. … Let’s take the far corner of it right next to Lower Left and give Zepeddie’s a try again.’”

Brian Zepsa

Zepeddie’s: The name elicits fond memories for anyone who lived in south Charlotte from 1994 to 1999, when it was one of the city’s few locally owned pizza restaurants. (The name comes from a combination of the family surname and that of Zepsa’s father, Eduard, a Serbian immigrant who founded the Zepsa businesses.) It served more than just pizza. Lasagna, manicotti, and other Italian dishes were on the menu, too. 

But pizza was its bread and butter, so to speak. Zepeddie’s sustained itself on its daily $4.95 lunch buffet and deliveries after dark. It won fans along the way. Zepsa’s friend Adam Valdez, now a financial director for an manufacturing company, ate Zepeddie’s pies often with his late father, Raul, when the two lived together on Milford Road.

“He was a huge fan. He just thought their food was far superior in terms of what you could get for Italian takeout,” Valdez says. “He was dedicated. He ordered probably once a week.” 

Fans of the old place, on Woodlawn Road near Interstate 77, will notice some changes at the new location, about a half-mile north. The menu is smaller, concentrating on New York- and Sicilian-style pizza, plus calzones, strombolis, sandwiches, and salads. 

Sicilian-style Bianca pizza

The new Zepeddie’s takes up one unit in a large building, for years the family businesses’ woodworking shop, where the Zepsas lease space. They hope to open a liquor-serving bar and grill, Rough Mill Tavern, there in the next year or two.

The Zepeddie’s space is cozy, with just enough room for 20 inside and another 10 or so on the patio—and pays tribute to its past with the original teal sign, which the family kept in storage for years. Zepsa understands, too, that Zepeddie’s will no longer compete with just Domino’s and Papa John’s but the likes of Bird, Sal’s, and Zämbies, which has forced a bump in quality. Multiple ingredients are organic and local, he says; that includes the flour for the pizza dough and sandwich bread, which comes from Lindley Mills in Graham, near Burlington.

The new Zepeddie’s focuses on the basics, like New York-style pepperoni and the meatball sandwich.

Of course, better typically means pricier. That $4.95 lunch buffet, like the old spot, is ancient history: The 12-inch pies range from $16 to $19, the specialty 16-inch pies from $25 to $28. For old fans, will sticker shock offset the delight over Zepeddie’s’ return?

“I’m sure it will happen. But it’s a ‘you get what you pay for’ kind of thing,” Zepsa says. “If someone is interested in paying half that price, there are places they can go for half that price. But I’m hoping enough people are interested in paying for something special and different and really good that they’re actually looking forward to.”