Restaurant Featuring Pizza, Italian, Arcades Expanding In CT

VERNON, CT — A Glastonbury-based restaurant that combines pizza, gourmet food and an arcade is well on its way toward expanding its culinary empire that will begin in Vernon and Enfield and extend through its current location to Orange in partnerships with several of the new and popular axe-throwing venues.

When all is said and done, Square Peg Pizza will have seven new restaurants in Connecticut by next year.

A plan that would extend Square Peg's reach from the north central state border to the New Haven suburbs with eight locations seemed like it could be overly ambitious at the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic when owner Jay Maffe first began getting serious.

"It's getting there with some good partnerships," he said. "I'm sure we're going to see on Facebook that 'another pizza place' is coming, but Square peg is a lot more that that. We have good pizza, of course, but we have fresh pasta and we have salads. We have a lot more than that."

Maffe said the venues were strategically planned out.

The Vernon location should be the first to open with all local regulatory hurdles cleared and construction under way to transform a dilapidated old barbecue place into Square Peg No. 2. Maffee said the location on busy state Route 83 — and near two large luxury apartment complexes — is "ideal."

Maffe said the plan is to open in Vernon by July with this building ...

... transformed into this venue ...

The Vernon location will feature not only the outdoor patio, but a pickup window. Customers who call in orders will be able to drive to the right side of the restaurant to pick up their food, he said.

Maffee called the Vernon restaurant the showcase venue along with the original Square Peg in Glastonbury.

The other expansions include:

• At the Montana Nights Axe Throwing venue in Orange. The target for opening is August.
• At Odin's Keep Axe House in Enfield. The business is also owned by the Montana Nights group and the plan is to open in August, Maffe said.
• A plan to be the food venue at a brew house in Manchester. Maffee said he was not ready to name the brew house since the plans are currently in the early stages of the local regulatory process.
• In Wethersfield after a land acquisition with a local brewery. The Plan is to open by early 2022 if not in late 2021, Maffe said.
• At Montana Nights in Berlin in a design that includes outdoor dining.
• In Newington at Montana nights at a restaurant that has separate indoor seating. The plan is to open in July, Maffe said.

The outline is quite different from the beginning of the pandemic, Maffe said.

"Back in April, we were trying to figure everything out, but there is a definite plan now," Maffe said. "We have great partners in Montana Nights and Odin's Keep and the drive-up windows will have a definite impact."

Maffe then began to get animated.

"Wait until you see the Vernon restaurant," he said. "It's going to transform that property."

So patience prevailed?

"Yes," Maffe said. "The timing is right now with people being able to get out more."