A-Ville Diner opening in former Pizza Plus location
Roy and Teresa Bruce stand behind the ice cream cooler in their new restaurant in An- dersonville called the A-Ville Diner, which is expected to open during the second half of March. It’s in the former location of Pizza Plus, which closed Dec. 31. (photo:G. Chambers Williams III )
Roy and Teresa Bruce, who were the longtime owners of the Andersonville BP gas station and convenience store, recently bought the former Pizza Plus restaurant building across the street, at 3605 Andersonville Highway, and will open the diner there.
“We will have dip ice cream, soft-serve ice cream, hamburgers, Hunt Brothers pizza and more,” Roy Bruce said as the couple worked inside the building on Friday morning.
“We’ll also have chicken sandwiches, chicken tenders, fish sandwiches, French fries and tater tots,” he said. “We also plan to have plate lunches with a meat and two sides from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Monday through Friday.”
He said they have been working since Pizza Plus closed at the end of December to get the building ready for their new diner.
“We’ve done a lot of remodeling inside,” Bruce said. “We changed colors and trim.”
Tentative plans are for the restaurant to be open Monday through Saturday from 6 a.m. to 8 p.m., but that will depend on whether they can find enough staff to keep those hours, he said.
“If not, we might be open just 11 a.m. to 8 p.m.,” he said. The diner will be closed on Sundays, which was one of the busiest days for Pizza Plus.
The diner will still use the same drive-up window on the west side of the building that Pizza Plus used for takeout orders, Bruce said. But unlike Pizza Plus, the diner will not offer delivery.
Both of the Bruces said they decided to sell the convenience store last year because they had been in that business for the past 45 years, and needed a less-stressful life. They believe the diner will be a lot less work that the store was, Bruce said.
As for the opening date for the A-Ville Diner, that’s still to be determined, he said.
“We will open as soon as we’re ready,” he said. “That could be by mid-March, but it will be no later than the end of the month.”
Pizza Plus lost its lease when the Bruces bought the property, and the pizza chain’s owners decided not to try to find another location in this area.
The building was sold to the Bruces last Dec. 7 for $365,000, according to online county property records.
A spokeswoman for the Blountville-based Pizza Plus said the Andersonville location was the furthest of its 56 stores from its home base, and that the company did not want another store that far away.