Pagliai's History...
In the 1960's, the pizza pie was not yet a staple of the American diet that it is today. The young menu item was considered by many to be merely an exotic "snack food" back then - a culinary afterthought enjoyed in the few parlors, pubs and pizza houses that had begun to materialize across the nation after World War II. The pizza business was hardly the multi-billion dollar industry that it is today.
This is where our story begins, in 1967, with a nineteen year old Missouri born pizza maker named George Nicholson. George had spent his early years mastering his trade under the tutelage of the Pagliai's brothers, Salvatori, Armond and Haldo, who had built a chain of pizzerias which stretched across Missouri, Iowa, and Illinois. One day, after having passed through a college town in Northwest Ohio called Bowling Green, Salvatori thought, rightfully so, that this town would be an ideal location for the first (and to this day the only) Pagliai's Pizza in Ohio. When George was given the opportunity to relocate from their location in Iowa City to Bowling Green to open up the pizza house, he jumped at it.
Pagliai's opened for business at 1004 South Main in 1967, across the street from the present location, with George and a handful of employees under him. Cheese pizzas for ninety cents and bottles of pop for a dime caught on... in a big way. In 1969, hot subs and the first salad bar in town were added. In 1976, having outgrown its current location, the business moved across the street to its current location at 945 South Main. In 1978, a second pizzeria was established at 440 East Court Street and named Campus Pollyeyes. The name changed to a more phonetic spelling to avoid confusion.
Both Pagliai's and Campus Pollyeyes remain today, having evolved from the modest pizza houses they once were to the full-service Italian restaurants they are today. For over thirty-five parlors that existed in the sixties, to the town having been immortalized in the Guinness Book of World Records for having the most pizza eateries per capita in the eighties! Through it all, we have been there to serve our loyal customers, and we hope to be here to serve you for many more wonderful years.