A Delaware beach institution known for pizzas topped with a distinctive swirl of sauce and cheese has planted its westernmost flag yet in Central Pennsylvania. Grotto Pizza opened its newest restaurant on September 15 at 1515 Lititz Pike in Manheim Township, inside the Shoppes at The Pointe shopping center, bringing the chain’s thick-crust pies and sports bar setup closer to Harrisburg-area diners.
The new restaurant occupies a 4,900-square-foot suite and includes a sports bar, according to leasing details from Bennett Williams Commercial, the brokerage that handled the lease. As PennLive reports, the Manheim Township location is the chain’s westernmost restaurant to date and its first foothold in Central Pennsylvania, a milestone for a brand that has spent decades building loyalty among Pennsylvania beachgoers who vacation along the Delaware shore.
Getting the doors open required more than a lease signing. A proposed liquor-license transfer to the Lititz Pike address went before the township board at a public hearing, according to records from the Manheim Township Board of Commissioners.
A Brand Built on an Accidental Swirl
Grotto Pizza traces its roots to a stand founded in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, in 1960 by Dominick Pulieri along with Mary Jean and Joseph Paglianite, per PennLive’s reporting. The chain expanded from Paglianite’s pizzeria in Harveys Lake, Pennsylvania, and today it’s known for sports bars and thick-crust pizzas topped with the brand’s signature sauce-and-cheese swirl. That look wasn’t originally intentional — according to Edible Delmarva, early line cooks stopped crosshatching sauce over the cheese, and the swirl simply stuck as the chain’s trademark presentation…