An Armuchee constant
Pasquale’s celebrates its 35th anniversary
Pasquale’s Italian restaurant, housed in red-framed stone alongside U.S. 27, has been a stalwart presence in Armuchee for decades now — three and a half, to be exact.
Its commitment to freshness, and relationship with the community, are what’s made it so popular among generations of Floyd Countians who have ordered its pizzas and stopped in for a leisurely chicken alfredo dinner in its window booths.
Chuck Bailey co-owns the restaurant alongside father and son Jim and Cody Durall. Fresh ingredients, Bailey said, do present a higher cost, but they’re worth it when it comes to the signature dish: Pizza.
“A lot of the bigger corporate operations, they get their dough brought in frozen, the cheese comes in frozen. So the way we saw it is they’re kind of doing a down service to the pizzeria — you know, the local pizzeria that we all grew up on — because it’s no different than buying a frozen pizza at a store the way I see it,” he said. “And so, we thought, ‘Well, if you get the best crust and we make our own dough, and we get the best sauce — we make our own pizza sauce — and try to get the best quality ingredients — we grate our own cheese — how can you end up with a bad pizza?”
That philosophy has seen Pasquale’s through the decades as the community has developed around it.
A LITTLE HISTORY
The eatery opened in its current location in 1987 and Kim and Jim Durall bought into the Pasquale’s franchise in November of 1988. Bailey began in May of 1988 as he worked through college at Shorter. The Duralls offered him a buy-in when he neared graduation.
“Well, this could be a cool little opportunity. I’ll try it, anyway,” he recalled to the Rome NewsTribune recently. “And 30-something years later, here I am!”
The restaurant transitioned away from the franchise model in the early 1990s, and now, Bailey thinks it may be the last Pasquale’s of its kind in the state.
“I think we’re the only one left in Georgia now,” he said. “There’s a bunch of Pasquale’s out there just because it’s a popular Italian name, but they might not be associated with the old-school — our — Pasquale’s.”
He described the franchised restaurants as having been neck-andneck with Pizza Hut at one time. The parent company went through several owners, including Labatt Brewing Co. out of Canada, and it dwindled to 30-some-odd stores in the ’90s before the corporate portion went defunct, he said.
Transitioning to private ownership presented a leap of faith.
“It was kind of a double edged sword,” Bailey recalled. “It was kind of scary at first, but we have upgraded everything. We do stuff the way that we want to do it. We make our own sauces and that kind of stuff now, so it’s actually made us better.”
And it’s kept them in line with what customers seem to want — and with what the owners themselves want.
“For me to be here, I have to be happy with the product we’re selling, so I try to get the top-notch ingredients and the supplies we can, and try to sell a reasonable product for a reasonable price to our customers,” Bailey explained. “It’s such a small community — these are our friends and our family that support us each and every day, so you want to do right by them, also.”
CUSTOMER SERVICE
Doing right by customers has included serving them in ways no one else would for many years. Long before meal delivery became a mainstream business model, Pasquale’s was traversing the foothills to bring piping hot pizzas to the masses — at least the ones around Armuchee.
“There were no people out here, hardly, either,” Bailey recalled. “You had them way out in the Floyd Springs community, and we had payments to make. We had bills to pay, so we’d deliver all over town. There was nowhere we wouldn’t go.”
Today, Pasquale’s doesn’t travel quite as far to deliver pizza, but drivers can still often meet people for pickup. And there are more options for a meal now, too; the community has grown up around the restaurant. Bailey remembers when the surrounding subdivisions went in, as well as its neighbor, Lavender Mountain Hardware, and he seems to welcome the change.
“It’s nice to know that Armuchee is supporting itself now, really,” he said.
A BITTERSWEET MILESTONE
This anniversary represents lots of things for Pasquale’s: Hard work and dedication and a step forward with the addition of Cory as a co-owner.
“If we wanted to become a multigenerational business, we needed to kind of think about this stuff,” Bailey said. “The little baby I saw growing up is now my business partner.”
And the milestone is bittersweet. Kim passed away in November, and her absence is an acute thing, still.
“She was the heart and soul of Pasquale’s,” Bailey said. “She had the perfect personality for this business — the hospitality business. You could hear her laugh from one end of the building to the other end of the building. I can’t be in the building without thinking of her still … She was an inspiration to everybody … she was a rock star to Pasquale’s and the community.”
Now, as the restaurant eases into its 35th year of operation, Bailey credits the customers and employees for a longevity that’s rare.
“It’s really kind of a neat milestone, I guess. There aren’t a whole lot of restaurants, period, much less mom-and-pop type places (that make it this long),” he said. “It just takes a lot of hard work and gratitude and really good customers and good employees. Through it all, we work at it together.”