Baking pizza pies in the CSRA since 1949, Augusta’s oldest Italian restaurant is celebrating its 75th anniversary year to honor a family legacy.
Owned and operated by four generations over the years, Luigi’s current owner Penelope Ballas-Stewart said the restaurant started thanks to her great grandfather – Nicholas “Papou Nick” Ballas.
After his birth in Mytilini, on the island of Lesvos, Greece, Nicholas Ballas left home in 1920 to begin a new life in the U.S.
Although the family has always been Greek and strongly love their heritage to this day, Ballas-Stewart said the family felt Grecian cuisine would not have appealed to a wide audience back in the 40s.
“For Greek immigrants that came over during that time, a lot of them opened up Italian diners, because there are a lot of similarities in the food,” she said. “But Greek food would’ve been to foreign – especially in 1949 and in Augusta.”
The solution? An Italian menu with some Greek flare that quickly became an Augusta staple, after laying down roots at 590 Broad St.
Ballas-Stewart said some of the restaurant’s most popular items include a baked lasagna, Greek chicken and their famous pizza pie.
“We’ve added some Greek items to the menu. Through the years everyone has added some items or slightly changed the menu,” Ballas-Stewart said. “People back when we first opened used to order the pizza pie thinking it was a sort of dessert pie, and our lasagna is different. It’s got a Greek touch to it.”
With homemade Italian sausage and Greek spinach puffs, Luigi’s traditional menu has kept customers coming back year after year, along with the Ballas’ family hospitality.
As Papou Nick’s portrait has hung above the door for decades, the Ballas family has honored his memory by handing down the restaurant to the next generation and protecting its little black book of secret recipes.
“There’s a lot of pride in carrying on the family tradition. I just feel like it’s in my blood,” said Ballas-Stewart. “We’ve got a lot of history here.”
When Ballas-Stewart took over the restaurant in 2020, she quickly had to adapt to how restaurant life was affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.
“I was almost baptized into this by fire,” she said. “Prior to that, most of it was just natural because it’s all I’ve ever done and known.”
Following the restaurant’s recovery from COVID, Ballas-Stewart said one of the best parts of owning Luigi’s is connecting with locals and sharing in their happiest moments.
“We hear stories all the time of people getting engaged here, and parents or grandparents came on their first date here,” she said. “I’ve seen the full circle. There are people from when I first started serving tables that were kids drinking milk whip cream on it, and now they’re grown adults who are bringing their kids.”
For Ballas-Stewart, the memories the restaurant holds are unbeatable when compared to fast food chains and corporate dine-ins.
“What keeps us going now is seeing those young people come in on their first date, because this is where their grandparents came,” she said.
Today, Luigi’s has cemented itself as an Augusta tradition and a family legacy continues as the Ballas’ fifth generation learns the trade by working under their mother Ballas-Stewart.
Throughout the year, Ballas-Stewart said the restaurant will celebrate the anniversary in a small way each month with specials, a new menu item or maybe even a giveaway of some sort.
“We want people to come in and feel like the food is consistent and things are the same as they have always been,” said Ballas-Stewart. “It’s a tradition … we want people to leave happy.”
For more information about Luigi’s, visit: https://www.luigisinc.com/index.html.
Liz Wright is a staff writer covering education, lifestyle and general assignments for The Augusta Press. Reach her at liz@theaugustapress.com.
