A Fort Worth pizza favorite with roots in Italy is growing again on Camp Bowie Boulevard
Olivella’s Pizza and Wine started big. Then it got small.
Now it’s growing again, adding a dining room and restoring full restaurant and bar service for Olivella’s “on the bricks” at 4910 Camp Bowie Blvd. in west Fort Worth.
Like neighbors Kincaid’s Hamburgers, Lucile’s Stateside Bistro, The Original Mexican Eats Cafe and Roy Pope Grocery, Olivella’s counts on drawing new customers to an older, quieter brick stretch of Camp Bowie Boulevard and the Arlington Heights neighborhood.
The original Olivella’s opened 15 years ago across from SMU in Dallas, bringing Neapolitan-style pizza tradition when thin-crust pizza was still a novelty.
The first Fort Worth location opened in what is now Blue Butterfly Cafe in the Ridglea neighborhood, but when dining rooms closed during the pandemic, co-owner Charlie Green moved Olivella’s 2 miles east to a take-out location in a former doughnut shop at the corner at Collinwood Avenue.
.Now, Olivella’s dining room is taking over an adjacent space and will open by late summer, offering more wine specials and room to sit and enjoy the Neapolitan-style or thin-crust, crisp Roman “metro” style pizzas fresh from the oven.
“The place where we started was too big, but now we’ve outgrown this space — that’s good news,” Green said.
Olivella’s is on a quiet neighborhood-retail stretch of the boulevard, facing Kincaid’s three blocks west of Hulen Street.
The new dining room will have a bar with cocktails and large windows so diners and passing motorists can see the restaurant, he said.
The restaurant also offers salads and pastas, including lasagna Sundays.
At some point, Olivella’s will add the brunch menu that has been a success at Dallas locations in Lakewood and near SMU.
The restaurant’s top sellers remain a black-truffle pizza with speck, the soppressata-and-sausage and the chicken-pancetta-jalapeno-and-Gorgonzola “Dream.”
The current Olivella’s has a takeout counter and a few tables.
It’s open for lunch Fridays and for dinner Tuesdays through Sundays; 817-439-7676, olivellas.com
This story was originally published June 6, 2022 at 5:45 AM.
