New York-style pizza place in Carolina Forest hopes to be go-to neighborhood spot
When Lisa Fuda and her husband, Domenic, first moved to Myrtle Beach five years ago, they had their hearts set on a plot of land in Carolina Forest.
The two had a vision of opening up their own restaurant just like the ones back home. Domenic Fuda had been in the pizza business since he was 21, and when he and Lisa Fuda got married, they opened their own place together in Albany, New York.
Now the couple, with the help of a few other partners, have brought their New York style pizza to Carolina Forest. Amici Pizza officially opened on May 8. Located off of Carolina Forest Boulevard, the restaurant is serving up unique pizza while making it the prime spot for locals.
The hope is that Amici can be a place for any member of the Carolina Forest community to be with their family, Lisa Fuda said.
“My actual neighbors come in here. It’s not strangers,” Fuda said. “These are all people that we’re all here together — neighborhoods and families and everybody — in Carolina forest.”
Years in the making
The Fudas didn’t have the easiest time opening their own pizza place in the Myrtle Beach area.
When they initially moved, the building Amici sits in hadn’t even been built yet. Fuda and her husband saw this as an opportunity to start from scratch with the intention of opening up a deli.
But after the couple put down a deposit, the project went nowhere, leaving them to pull away from their plans. The two pivoted and decided that even if they couldn’t open up their ideal spot immediately, they wanted to still have a small business in Carolina Forest, leading them to open Nonna’s Taste of Italy.
A few years after Nonna’s opened, Fuda saw that the property she and her husband originally wanted to open up in became available. They jumped on the opportunity and opened Amici pizza.
Part of what drew Fuda and her husband to the area is the community surrounding it. Across from Amici is the Carolina Forest Library and Carolina Forest Recreation center, and a block down the street sits Ten Oaks Middle School.
“It’s a huge community here, so I love that the kids can come ride their bikes,” Fuda said. “We just wanted it because the location is so prime, and it’s close to home.”
‘Your Neighborhood Slice’
Amici Pizza is serving up traditional favorites while also experimenting with their menu, Fuda said.
If anyone walks in, they’ll find classics such as a meat lovers pizza, several kinds of calzones and garlic knots. But on top of that Fuda said they are expanding their offerings in square pies.
One of the newest ones, the Hot Berry Square, has a raspberry habanero jam and pepperoni on it. Another one, the Chicken Marsala, has homemade Marsala sauce with grilled chicken and mozzarella cheese.
For Fuda, it’s important that she and the other owners at Amici pay homage to their roots in the Northeast. One of Amici Pizza’s sandwiches — The Staten Vodka — is a reference to one of their part owners Greg D’esposito’s dishes in Staten Island.
D’esposito is one of two part owners in addition to the Fudas. He wasn’t initially looking to get into the restaurant industry, he said. But when the opportunity came up to partner with the Fudas in opening Amici, he had to get involved.
He’s excited for people to experience something similar to what he had growing up, he said.
“I came from New York, so having a local pizzeria is very common up there, where here it’s not as common. It’s not as densely populated. Everything is a little more spread out,” D’esposito said. “But this is the type of location that you know we’re used to, and I grew up coming to.”
Part of the way Fuda and her husband recreated that local pizzeria feel is by how they decorated the walls, she said. Fuda enlisted the help of a local artist to paint their slogan “Your Neighborhood Slice” on one of the restaurant’s walls.
Another wall has a full mural of a typical block in New York. A pizzeria can be seen with tall buildings in the background. A table with two chairs sits in front of the restaurant. The wall represents the different parts of New York each of the owners are coming from, Fuda said.
“We are just going with the neighborhood feel,” Fuda said.
Amici Pizza is open daily from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m.
