Upscale pizzeria sets opening date for expansion into downtown Clayton
Neapolitan-style pizza is landing in Clayton this summer as a new fiery pizzeria prepares to open.
The Greenville-based Luna Pizza Cafe will open a new Clayton location on July 7, the brand’s first full restaurant in Johnston County. The popular pizzeria also has a space in the Old North State Food Hall off of Interstate 95 in Selma.
Luna Pizza will open in the Spinning Mill Lofts development, a project turning a vacant cotton mill just outside of downtown Clayton into loft apartments. Located on Front Street behind the Clayton post office, that project will add 255 new apartments.
While born in Eastern North Carolina, Luna draws its pizza-making inspiration from the pies of Italy, blistered in a few moments by the flames of a gas oven firing at 800 degrees. Co-owner Richard Williams left a tenured professor position at East Carolina University to learn how to make pizza in Italy, then opened the first Luna in 2018 with business partner and culinary lead John Jefferson.
The Clayton Luna will be a free-standing restaurant that’s around 2,000 square feet, with a large Marra Forni pizza oven.
Luna still has some building permits to secure and a liquor license to obtain, but Williams is confident on the July 7 opening, the Sunday of a holiday weekend.
This is Luna’s first venture west of Interstate 95.
An increasingly cosmopolitan Clayton
Luna joins an increasingly cosmopolitan Clayton, which in the last few years has seen the addition of cocktail bars and coffee shops and Crawford Cookshop, a restaurant from Raleigh chef and James Beard nominee Scott Crawford.
“Johnston County is on fire, Clayton in particular,” Williams said.
The menu at the Clayton Luna will mirror the original Greenville location, with pizzas at the center, small plates like meatballs and involtini di Melanzane, a roasted and rolled eggplant dish. There will be a full bar and familiar Italian desserts like tiramisu and snappy cannoli.
Williams said Luna’s brand of pizza tips towards the upscale side of the slice.
“We want to offer something outside the work-a-day world, where people can go to something and feel ecstatic,” Williams said. “We want to be the best hour or two of your day. We do sell pizza, but what we’re trying to sell is an experience.”
When Luna first opened there was not pepperoni pizza on the menu, only hot soppressata. Eventually Luna changed course once when the salami wasn’t available, finding an artisanal, cupping pepperoni.
“Obviously (pepperoni) was a hit,” Williams said. “Probably should have had it on from the beginning.”
The lights are dimmed at Luna, the restaurant stereo plays Bossa nova and Rat Pack tunes.
“We treat pizza like an entree, not fast food,” Williams said. “You’re going to feel like you stepped into somewhere special.”
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