By the time you read this, you’ve probably already heard about Bluffton’s hottest new restaurant. No, it’s not one of those fancy places with ingredients you’ve never heard of or cannot pronounce. It’s a pizza joint. A simple, clean, quality pizza joint that in just over a month in business as I write this, has become the talk of the town.
Mama G’s Bistro and Bar sounds a bit on the uppity side. That assessment is fair enough because this is a higher end establishment. Everything about it is.
About a week and a half after they opened last month, I spent a couple of hours with the owner, Glen Grace. He and his family have been in the area for a hot minute. He’s spent his time here working in the trucking industry. Which is not exactly the kind of profession that allows a clean transition to food and beverage. So you had to wonder, how did he end up renting a space and putting about a million dollars into a renovation, research and development of what has become the best pizza in the Low Country? Because it is.
The intentions were 100% pure. In more ways than one.
Glen shared a story with me about his own childhood. He brought up something that many of us who try to watch what we consume on a daily basis talk about fairly regularly.
“I assume we are about the same age.” He said “When we were kids, we didn’t have problems with GMO food or Gluten Free products or Organic anything.”
“The things that they are putting in our food now is terrible. It’s garbage.”
His 3 children wanted to open a restaurant. He gave it some thought and finally landed on ‘if we are going to do it, we are going to do it my way and we are going to do it right.”
So he went full steam ahead on renting a space in the Moss Creek area that would eventually become home to a good looking restaurant who’s main offering, that’s right, is pizza. Not just any, though.
In those two hours, Glen more than shared his passion. On a tour of his kitchen, he showed me all of the high-end ingredients that he had just spent 30 minutes telling me about. I could list them here for you, but it doesn’t really matter. What I can tell you is that flours, the oils and anything else you will find in their kitchen is the highest quality you can get delivered in this area.
Some of it required a significant commitment on Glen’s part with his distributors because no one else in this area is using it. If they are going to make the commitment to get it to Bluffton, South Carolina for you, you’d better be prepared to buy a lot of it. And he is.
The result of this dedication is very clear when you take a bite of their pizzas at Mama G’s. The pies are wonderful. The quality is more than obvious.
“I like to look at people’s eyes when they take their first bite.” Glen says. “The eyes don’t lie”
No, they don’t, and as a result, Mama G’s has been very well received. They’ve gone on hour plus waits multiple evenings since they first opened. There’s been no ‘easing into it’ here. They’ve been drinking out of a fire hose from just about day 2 or 3 and it’s more than obvious that Glen is loving every minute of it.
On the flip side, the price you pay for all of this quality, passion and excellent execution is….the price you pay. There is nothing inexpensive about the pizza Mama G’s is offering the community and Glen makes no apologies for it.
If you are looking for a Tuesday night $8 three meat special, you’d best be served getting on down the road. That ain’t happening here. His least expensive glass of wine on the day I visited was $9. Again, Glen references the fact that he refuses to serve low end wines that he can burn through at $6 a glass just to make a buck or two. This isn’t about that. It is, and always will be about serving clean, healthy food with the most simple recipes and ingredients you will always know.
Even the sodas. There is no Coke or Pepsi in here. It’s organic fountain sodas. The gelato is made by a very small company in Charleston who, Glen says, is very persnickety themselves about who serves their product.
“We are her first brick and mortar.” He says.
Overall the experience is fantastic. The space is beautiful, the vibe is warm and inviting. I have yet to see it, but I imagine the dinner crowds on the weekend offer an energy that you won’t find at too many places on the mainland. Sure, there are a few, but now there is one more.
A pizza joint, where you will Eat It and Like It.
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