Big John’s Pizza is spending one last summer in its current location where Colby Street in Whitehall curves to become Thompson Street, but over the weekend it announced plans to move to the Colby St. plaza where Healthy Pantry, Colby’s Cafe and Brew, White Lake Nutrition and others currently sit. The move will take place at the end of the summer.
Big John’s will continue current operations through the middle of August before closing for a couple of weeks to allow time to move all the necessary equipment over to the new location. Part of the new space’s footprint included Releve Dance Studio before the studio recently moved into a new space, but the building also once housed Gustino’s Pizza and Grinders in the 2000s and had some necessary equipment Big John’s needed for its business. That helped pique Big John’s interest when considering future properties.
The well-known pizza place is moving after selling its current building to the city of Whitehall. Whitehall, which is using Tax Increment Finance Authority (TIFA) funds to make the purchase, plans to demolish the building and incorporate the property into a planned Colby promenade, which will begin construction later this year after the demolition.
“It’s kind of funny, a couple years ago they asked us about moving and we said we were good, and we didn’t know all this was coming down the pipeline,” Big John’s owner Amy Martell said, referring to the building purchase.”That was the space one of the partners approached us on a couple years ago, We looked at a lot of spaces, spaces in Whitehall and a handful of spaces in Montague.”
Martell added one of the biggest selling points about the Colby space was readily available parking. The Big John’s owners have been open about the frustrations they have faced due to limited parking availability near the restaurant’s current location.
There was a lot of excitement on social media for the announcement, with nearly 1,000 ‘likes’ on Facebook and over 180 comments expressing support for the move. Martell said local support has been a major factor in keeping morale up during the process of finding new premises.
“We honestly weren’t really sure what we were going to do, and we were up front about that,” Martell said. “It was a lot to think about. It wasn’t just a space issue, it was everything that went into it. We seriously considered not reopening because we didn’t know if we could handle it, but our customers kind of peer pressured us into moving and taking that leap. We realized how much support we really do have.”
The new space will offer more room for dining, which could be a boost to the business. Martell joked that one drawback of the move is needing to find a new purpose for the deck the business installed in 2021, saying it may end up at her and husband Neal’s house.
“Other than that, it’s just trying to prepare all the (summer) customers and letting people know,” Martell said. “That was important to us, because we have people that come here (just) for the summer.”
Towards the end of the summer, Martell said, Big John’s may invite longtime customers on a tour of the building prior to vacating it. One customer suggested having a videographer document the process of closing the current location and moving to the new one.
“There’s a real sentimental piece to this,” Martell said. “There’s so much history here.”
