Danbury’s Papa G’s to replace Sbarro in Stamford
STAMFORD — Pizza chain Sbarro has closed its establishment at Stamford Town Center, ending a nearly 40-year run at the downtown mall — but another pizza business is set to soon take its place.
Sbarro closed at the end of January in the food court on the mall’s seventh floor, Stamford Town Center officials confirmed. It was one of Stamford Town Center’s longest-running tenants, having operated since 1984 at the shopping center, which opened in 1982.
Danbury-based Papa G’s Pizza will take the space vacated by Sbarro, with an opening scheduled for late April or early May, according to the mall’s management. It will mark the second location for Papa G’s, which opened in the food court at Danbury Fair mall in June 2020.
Papa G’s owner Alvaro Giron knows his new location well. He worked at Sbarro from 1987 to 2006, including a stint managing the establishment at Stamford Town Center.
“We’ll have better food than Sbarro,” Giron said in an interview. “I think we can do better than Sbarro than over there.”
A message left for Sbarro inquiring why it had closed at Stamford Town Center was not immediately returned.
Papa G’s will join a Stamford Town Center food court roster that also includes El Charrito, Chicken Now, Funland Frozen Yogurt, Ichiban Teriyaki House, Kung Fu Chef King, Subway and Town Center Variety.
More culinary openings are planned in other parts of Stamford Town Center. In the mall’s restaurant plaza on Tresser Boulevard, the latest location of Mexican-restaurant chain Puerto Vallarta is expected to open next month.
In an anchor space across the mall’s fourth and fifth floors that was previously occupied by a Saks Off 5th department
store, a food hall supported by chef Todd English is set to take its place. The food hall’s opening date has not been finalized yet. Recent openings at the mall include La Picante Fine Foods, a kiosk restaurant on the fourth floor next to the mall’s Barnes & Noble store; Pink Sweets Cakes on the fourth level; and Brazilian steakhouse Terra Gaucha in the restaurant plaza.
Elsewhere in Connecticut, Sbarro still operates at the Interstate 95 northbound service plaza in Darien, the I-95 service plazas and Connecticut Post Mall in Milford, Union Station in New Haven, Westfarms
mall on the Farmington-West Hartford border, Buckland Hills mall in Manchester, and a service plaza off I-95 in North Stonington.
For many years, Sbarro also operated at the I-95 southbound plaza in Darien. But that space is currently unoccupied, with large banners covering the storefront. One of the banners includes leasing information. The location is listed as “temporarily closed” on Sbarro’s website.
Known for serving pizzas by the slice, Sbarro is a fixture in food courts across the U.S., while it also operates in many
other countries.
“In 1956, Carmela and Gennaro Sbarro opened the doors to their Italian salumeria in Brooklyn. Carmela ‘Mama’ Sbarro made pizza slices for shift workers looking for a quick meal,” reads an excerpt on Sbarro’s website. “Her slices were so popular that they soon opened a second location focused solely on pizza. Since then, Sbarro has brought the best pasta, salad and of course the XL NY slice to 630 eateries across 28 countries.”