Paisano’s Pizza Grill opened in 2009 with two best friends Nick Skover and myself, Mark Slater. Nick and I met in 2001, while we both attended College of Charleston as business majors and enjoyed playing hoops at noon in the old C of C basketball gym. After college, not being desk kind of guys we both wanted to be entrepreneurial and so together Nick and I started up several small businesses. We tried our hand at pressure washing, painting, and real estate while still working in the food and beverage industry to pay the bills. 

In late 2008, we were presented the opportunity to purchase the Gilroy’s pizza on James Island at 1246 Camp Rd. We jumped at the chance to own our own pizzeria. We both knew what it took to own a successful restaurant, lots of hard work and dedication. We both have plenty of that. Nick and I spent several months perfecting our recipes, creating our menu and having fun testing our product with our friends. 

Several months later Paisano’s Pizza Grill was up and running and we haven’t lost speed since. A lot of people have asked us over the year why we choose the name Paisano’s. Paisan’s means brother or best friend in Italian, so it was a perfect fit for Nick and me. It didn’t hurt that Nick also loved the name Paisano’s Pizza from Seinfeld.

In 2009 we opened with five employees, and that number included Nick and me. Today, we have three locations and over 100 employees. In 2012 we purchased the old Athens Pizzeria in West Ashley located at 1798 Ashley River Rd. We spent several months painting, remodeling and making the space our own. We opened in November 2012 and have been slinging pizzas in West Ashley ever since. 

Three years later we found an empty lot in Mount Pleasant off of Anna Knapp Blvd (1151 Queensborough Blvd). We saved up enough to buy the lot and spent the next two years designing and building our perfect space for a new Paisano’s home. We wanted a welcoming space with an open feel for people to come celebrate together, whether that is a friend’s birthday, family pizza night, or little league celebrations. Anything that brings people together. We designed the restaurant to have an outside area for kids to run around and parents to enjoy a cold beer, a slice of pizza and let kids be kids. 

We opened our Mt. Pleasant doors in January of 2020, right as Covid hit. We had to shut down our dining room, designed for everyone to come together and we needed to pivot to focus on serving our customers and keeping our employees safe and healthy. We did curbside service and no contact deliveries. We did anything it took to keep our employees safe, employed, and supporting our community. Once we were able to open up our dining room, we worked hard to provide a space where people felt comfortable to get back out and enjoy being face to face again. After a few months, the dining room was again full of happy smiling faces. We are proud to have been providing the people of Mt. Pleasant a fun place to gather and enjoy good food and good times ever since.

 

At Paisano’s our main goal has always been to provide great food the whole family will love at a good price. We work hard to create a menu that gives everyone in your family the ability to find something they will love.

What sets Paisano’s apart from other pizza places is the diversity in our menu. We have something for everyone. If you don’t like pizza we have some of the best wings and sandwiches in town. If you are looking to stay lighter, our salads are fresh and delicious, plus we also have gluten free pizzas. Everyone can find something to fall in love with at Paisano’s. Every morning, we spend hours prepping our fresh ingredients for that day. We make our own salad dressings including our famous blue cheese, which goes perfect with our wings.

One of my favorite sandwiches is our Meatball Parmesan. We make our own meatballs cooked in our pizza sauce, fresh each day. Our sub rolls hold up well with our generous toppings of delicious sauce and cheese. We then toast the sandwich with a blend of our own cheeses. It really makes me feel like I am back in NYC where I was born.

A fan favorite is our Italian Stallion sandwich. It has peperoni, salami, and ham and we use two different cheeses to top it off along with some fresh basil and our home-made oil infusion. We toast it off then top it with fresh sliced tomatoes, shredded lettuce and mayo. It is probably our most popular sandwich.

What also sets us apart, and we hear from families every day, is the fun family atmosphere we provide with our great staff and fun games to keep the kids entertained. Our large game room along with a great outdoor area to throw host parties, make it a great way to spend time with the family while enjoying a great meal together. There is something for everyone at Paisano’s.

 

At Paisano’s we use several local and national food purveyors, this variety of sourcing allows us the ability to buy the freshest ingredients at the best price. We are constantly searching for better ingredients and different ways to improve our menu. The quality of the food we provide has always been our main focus as it drives our business. 

We try to make as much as we can from scratch, but we also focus on quality of the products. Our dough is made fresh every morning, in house by hand. We also blend our own cheeses and make our sauce fresh every day. Our deli meats and veggies are sliced by us every day. People often say it is the little things in life, and these are the little steps that we take every day that add up delivering the quality of food we strive for everyday at Paisano’s. Our motto has always been fresh ingredients prepared daily equals the best pizza in town.

 

Besides focusing on our food, we also focus on the communities in which we live and work. Since we opened our doors at Paisano’s, Nick and I have been making it a point to give back to the people who have helped make us successful. We help raise money for our local schools, provide non-profit organizations a place to raise money for causes, help families and individuals who need a little assistance. Whether it’s giving a new mom a free pizza or raising several hundred dollars for a classroom, it all adds up. It is the best feeling you can have when you see someone smile because you took the time out to help them and help them achieve their goals.

Most of our sponsorships and local initiatives focus on the youth of the community. We love working with our local recreation departments to provide kids the chance to play youth sports and live out their dreams of hitting a home run or just having fun playing with their friends. We know that these kids are the future of our community and we want our communities to continue to thrive. We also encourage our staff to engage in the community and find something they can help out with that is near and dear to their heart. Giving back just a little can make a huge difference. To name a couple of organizations we have contributed towards, a couple come to mind: East Cooper Meals on Wheels through an Old Village car party fundraising event, along with Atlas Free to help eradicate human trafficking. 

We work hard to make sure everyone has an enjoyable experience when they come to one of our locations. We want everyone in the family to have a good time. We know how difficult it can be to enjoy a meal together without breaking the bank. We know how hard our customers work to afford to enjoy a night out as a family together. We also know Mt. Pleasant has a lot of options. That is why we go out of our way to have good fresh food at an affordable price that creates memories for everyone to enjoy together. The memories are what we want you to remember, not the price.

 

Mount Pleasant has welcomed us with open arms. We have worked with so many of the surrounding schools and organizations. The people in Mount Pleasant have such a strong sense of community spirit. There are always such great turnouts to all of our fundraising events. Families here make it easy to be part of the community. We are so blessed to have found such a great place to open a small business.

What keeps us passionate about business are the people we work with and the people that we serve. We cannot make Paisano’s possible without our staff, and feel blessed and lucky to have such hard working, dedicated employees. Our team work makes the dream work, showing up day in and day out. They are what makes Paisanos feel like a family.

We have watched kids grow up and become parents themselves, now bringing their own kids in for pizza. Watching different generations of families continue to come back and enjoy our food year after year makes all the hard work worth it. We could not be happier for how things have turned out over the last 17 years.

What really sums us up is Paisano’s is great fresh food, made by great people, serving our wonderful community. We will see you here soon, Paisan!

Paisano's Pizza Grill

1151 Queensborough Blvd Ste 100

Mt Pleasant, SC 29464

843-972-8853

Order Online paisanospizzamtp.com