UPDATE: Paul Hamilton told The Scoop that he plans to open the doors to PW Pizza on Tuesday, May 10.
Paul and Wendy Hamilton will soon be tossing pizza pies. The owners of Vin de Set and Eleven Eleven Mississippi told The Scoop that come late April, they will open PW Pizza on the first floor of the Vin de Set building at 2017 Chouteau Ave.
PW Pizza – the initials are a stand-in for Paul and Wendy’s first names – will be an upscale pizza place serving lunch and dinner seven days a week. The focus will be on using fresh, local ingredients including cured meats and vegetables from local suppliers to prepare a wide selection of pizzas, soups and salads; one section of the pizza menu will even be dedicated to healthy options. PW will offer three types of crusts: original, which Paul Hamilton described as “East Coast-style – not super thin, but certainly not deep dish;” whole wheat; and gluten-free. It will be beer and wine only at the bar, with 10 micro brews on draught and another 40 by the bottle.
While some of the inspiration for PW Pizza came from a trip to Italy the Hamiltons took last year, the couple had been wanting to open a pizza joint for quite some time. Originally, they looked to house PW in The Chouteau Room at Vin de Set but opted not to give up the popular banquet space. So when Salon Rouge on the first floor of the building – which the couple owns – opted not to renew their lease, the space became available for the Hamiltons to move ahead on their new restaurant. They’re hoping the new restaurant will fill a void in the Lafayette Square area for “a good pizza place to dine in that also has a nice décor,” explained Paul Hamilton. “We want to [make] as good or better pizzas than anyone around and offer a good environment.” Sharing space in the 2,000-square-foot, 80-seat restaurant will be pizza parlor game faves: two pool tables, shuffleboard, dartboards and foosball.
This article appears in February 2011.