Macon Magazine

Gieuseppi’s serves up Italian with a sports theme

By Kim Zachman

With four flat-screen televisions tuned to ESPN, a bar lit with neon beer signs and sports memorabilia hanging on the walls, it appears at first glance that Giuseppi’s Pizza & Pasta is a sports bar.

Yet, the over-sized booths with green street lamps arched gracefully over the tables and the tastefully arranged sports artwork adds a feminine touch. Instead of dirty and smoky, Giuseppi’s is clean, bright and wholesome. It might be an oxymoron, but Giuseppi’s is a family-friendly sports bar.

In this atmosphere, it’s not surprising that the menu includes wings, hoagies, chicken fingers, Philly cheesesteaks and other typical bar foods. If it wasn’t for the name “Giuseppi’s Pizza & Pasta,” one might think the Italian dishes are merely menu fillers for the sports bar. However, Giuseppi’s is not a sports bar that happens to offer pizza; it’s a pizza place that happens to have a sports theme.

The original Giuseppi’s opened in 1981 in Hilton Head, S.C. The owners, Steve Carb, Tony Arcuri and James Loneiro, are from Pittsburgh, Penn., and grew up with pizzerias on every corner in their neighborhoods. With Giuseppi’s, they replicated the best of their old neighborhood haunts.

In April 2007, John and Tracy Childs opened a Giuseppi’s in Macon on Tom Hill Sr. Boulevard. The Childses had become acquainted with the unique pizza/sports bar while living in South Carolina. They moved from St. Simons Island to Beaufort, S.C., in 2004 for John to manage a new Barbara Jean’s restaurant. While living in Beaufort, they would occasionally make the short drive to Hilton Head to dine out.

“Every time we ate at Giuseppi’s, we found more foods we loved,” John Childs said. “It had a sports-bar feel, but it was family oriented.”