A restaurant that serves Neapolitan style pizza is adding another location in Johnston County in a few months.
The new location will be the fourth for Luna Pizza, which started in Greenville. The restaurant will be located near the Spinning Mill Loft apartment complex – located just southeast of downtown Clayton near Main Street – being developed by Taft Family Ventures.
"It just made a lot of sense," said Richard Williams, owner of Luna Pizza. "Johnston County is really up and coming and growing. The business environment in Johnston County and Clayton is just very, very positive. There's a lot of energy and money flowing into Johnston County."
Williams said the rough timeline for opening will be August, but delays in getting building materials may push that timeline back. He declined to share the investment cost for the new restaurant.
Luna Pizza has been named the best pizza in Greenville by The Daily Reflector in 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021 and 2022. Luna Pizza also has a location in Old North State Food Hall, which recently opened within the Eastfield development in Selma. Its other location is in Salt Lake City, Utah.
Neapolitan style pizza, which originated in Naples, Italy, is defined by its thin and soft crust. The pies cook for as little as two minutes in a super-hot oven. The most well-known pizza of its kind is the Margherita, a simple pizza comprised of tomato sauce, mozzarella and basil.
Luna Pizza has other types of pizza on the menu including the Bacon & Jalapeno (which Williams said is his favorite), Prosciutto & Arugula and the Crisp Eggplant.
Taft Family Ventures is a major player in the Greenville real estate scene, and Williams said Thomas Taft Jr. is a frequent customer at his Greenville location. The two have gotten to know each other, and that's how the relationship formed to the point where Williams is opening a location within Taft's Clayton project.
Taft Jr. said that this location is "the first of several locations that Taft and Luna have in various stages of planning."
Clayton is one of the fastest-growing places in the Triangle. The town, home to 28,300 people, grew by a whopping 7.5 percent in just one year between 2020 and 2021, according to U.S. Census data. For reference, North Carolina grew by 1.2 percent as a whole during the same period.
See the full article at The Triangle Business Journal