Popular South Sound pizza group adding new restaurants in Kitsap, Thurston counties
Farrelli’s Pizza, a family-owned restaurant group based in DuPont, Washington, will open its first pizzeria on the Kitsap Peninsula and its second in Thurston County this year.
The first of the pair, located at 2222 NW Bucklin Road in Silverdale, is slated for a June debut, said marketing and communications director Clayton Krueger. It replaces what was, until closing in 2012, the last-standing Blockbuster video store in town, according to the Kitsap Sun.
That store will be the ninth Farrelli’s Pizza, which began as a single restaurant in Lacey in 1995 when Margaret and John Farrell introduced their brand of wood-fired pies served in a family friendly setting. In addition to a few appetizers, including the popular Fire Stix, the menu features 11 house pizzas in three sizes ($13.99-$32.99), plus a monthly special and endless build-your-own options.
The 10th will be at 813 W. Yelm Ave., targeting a July or August opening.
While leasing the Silverdale space, they purchased the land and former Golden Dragon Chinese restaurant in Yelm. The facade will look similar, said Kreuger, but they are building a “big, new addition” that will house the bar and lounge area.
“It’s the first time in the company’s history that we’re doing two new stores simultaneously,” he said. “We’re in an exciting growth stage right now. We were headed this direction just prior to the pandemic, but you know, the world had other plans. This is getting us back on track.”
The Yelm restaurant reconnects Farrelli’s to its roots in Thurston County, he added, and puts them just down the street from Yelm High School.
As for the first-ever foray across the Narrows Bridge and into Kitsap, he said the company has long considered expanding to Gig Harbor, but they “haven’t found the right opportunity.” In Silverdale, they see a growing region.
“It’s still rife with opportunity — it’s not completely saturated,” Krueger told The News Tribune in a phone call. “We feel like the time is right.”
Fellow Pierce County restaurant Waffle Stop, whose Proctor District breakfast destination launched in 2018, is also opening a Silverdale location this year. Trapper’s Sushi, which reopened its Sixth Avenue Tacoma restaurant in 2021, also has a restaurant in this Kitsap nook.
Farrelli’s Silverdale will join a plaza already home to the air-sports complex DEFY, a Tractor Supply Co. and a VCA Animal Hospital.
Krueger said the company feels confident about the future after a tumultuous two years.
With more than 400 people on payroll, including management, they expect to surpass the 500-mark in hiring for these two new restaurants.
“We pride ourselves on being that place that can give someone their first job,” noted Kreuger, who started working for the original Farrelli’s as a busboy in 1997. “The neat thing is: Most of our senior leadership team here, we all worked together at that original location. We’ve all grown together.”
Farrelli’s Lacey operated for nine years before No. 2 opened in DuPont, followed by three new shops each year from 2005 to 2007 — in Sumner, Tacoma’s Sixth Avenue and Parkland near Pacific Lutheran University. In 2009, the company introduced McNamara’s Pub & Eatery, named after the matriarch’s family with Irish heritage.
Farrelli’s Pizza restaurants in Maple Valley, Frederickson and Point Ruston followed.
Margaret Farrell died in 2020, leaving the company in the hands of her husband and daughter, Jacquelyn Farrell.
FARRELLI’S PIZZA - SILVERDALE
▪ 2222 NW Bucklin Hill Road, Silverdale, (southwest corner of building with DEFY and Tractor Supply Co.) farrellispizza.com
▪ Details: family friendly pizzeria plus lounge, target opening June 2022
FARRELLI’S PIZZA - YELM
▪ 813 W. Yelm Ave., Yelm, farrellispizza.com
▪ Details: family-friendly pizzeria plus lounge, target opening July/August 2022
This story was originally published April 28, 2022 at 5:00 AM.