Dining in Mystic, CT: Mystic Pizza and Beyond
Mystic, CT is an unincorporated village straddling the Mystic River between the Town of Groton and the Town of Stonington, with no government of its own -- and its most famous dining story is also its most commonly misunderstood. This page centers on Mystic Pizza's real history, corrects the widespread misconception about where the 1988 movie was actually filmed, and names a genuinely deep roster of the rest of downtown Mystic's restaurants with real addresses. It is still not a substitute for a live map or review site, or the Mystic Chamber of Commerce, for current hours and menus -- but it goes well beyond Mystic Pizza alone.
Mystic Pizza: A Real Restaurant Since 1973
Mystic Pizza is a genuine, still-operating restaurant, founded in 1973 by the Zelepos family at 56 West Main Street in Mystic. It was an ordinary neighborhood pizzeria for years before it became famous: screenwriter Amy Jones, visiting the area, was inspired by the pizzeria itself to set her 1988 script there, a film about three young waitresses working at the restaurant.
That is the honest starting point for this page. Mystic Pizza did not become a restaurant because of the movie -- the movie exists because of the restaurant, which had already been serving pizza for fifteen years by the time the film was released.
The Correction Almost Every Visitor Needs: The Movie's Interior Was Not Filmed Here
This is the single fact most worth getting right before you visit: the interior and main scenes of the 1988 film were not filmed at the actual restaurant. Per a filming-locations research source, the exterior used for the movie was 70 Water Street in Stonington, CT, and a set was constructed inside for the film scenes -- not the real Mystic Pizza dining room. The actual restaurant on West Main Street appears in the finished film only in one brief driving-scene shot.
In other words, you cannot walk into Mystic Pizza today and stand in the room the movie was shot in, because that room was a set, and the building shown on screen was a different address in a different town. That does not make the real restaurant less worth visiting -- it is a genuinely historic, still-operating pizzeria with its own fifty-plus-year story -- it just means the common claim that you can dine in the pizzeria from the movie is not accurate, and this page won't repeat it.
The Film and What Came After
The movie itself was well received on release, including positive reviews from Siskel and Ebert. Its success led the restaurant to expand: Mystic Pizza opened a second location, Mystic Pizza II, in North Stonington, and later launched a nationally distributed frozen-pizza line carrying the name.
Current ownership is one detail this page will not overstate: the restaurant's own website carries a copyright credit to a company called Shuta Productions, but whether that reflects a full change of ownership away from the founding Zelepos family was not confirmed in the research behind this page. Treat that as an open question rather than a settled fact.
Beyond Mystic Pizza: A Real, Named Downtown Dining Roster
Downtown Mystic has a genuinely deep restaurant scene beyond its most famous name, and it is worth naming it directly rather than waving at "plenty of other options." On the Groton side of the river, Bravo Bravo (20 East Main Street) serves Italian-leaning seafood and pasta; Chapter One (32 West Main Street) is a steakhouse with dry-aged cuts and roughly two dozen craft beers on tap; Anthony J's Bistro (6 Holmes Street) is an intimate Italian bistro; Bartleby's (46 West Main Street), a café and breakfast spot, has operated since 1999. On the Stonington side, the Captain Daniel Packer Inne, at 32 Water Street, occupies a building whose own promotional materials date it to 1756 -- a genuinely old structure by Connecticut standards, though this page treats that founding year as a tourism-site claim rather than an independently verified historic-register date.
Beyond those anchors, Mystic's pizza scene alone runs several storefronts deep -- 184 Pizzeria (2440 Gold Star Highway), Angie's Pizza & Pier 27 Lounge (25 Roosevelt Avenue), and Christo's Pizza (Whitehall Avenue) all operate alongside Mystic Pizza itself, meaning the town's pizza identity is broader than one famous name. Dog Watch Mystic, also known as The Cove Restaurant (20 Old Stonington Road), serves house-smoked barbecue alongside lobster rolls and fish and chips. Jealous Monk (craft beer) and Rio Salado (Mexican) round out a downtown that offers real variety, not just a single tourist-movie stop. None of these listings should be read as endorsements -- they are named because they turned up with addresses in tourism-site research, and current hours, ownership, and menus should be checked directly before visiting.
The Real Geography: A Cross-River, Walkable Downtown
Downtown Mystic centers on the Mystic River Bascule Bridge crossing at U.S. Route 1/Main Street, and restaurants and shops line both riverbanks -- the Groton side to the west and the Stonington side to the east. That makes downtown Mystic a genuinely walkable, cross-river dining district, where a meal, an ice cream stop, and a stroll across the drawbridge can all happen within the same short walk, regardless of which bank you started on.
Worth keeping straight while you plan: Mystic is not the same market as Stonington Borough, a separate downtown with its own distinct dining scene a short distance away, and it is also distinct from Old Mystic (a separate CDP), the City of Groton, and Groton Long Point. This page covers Mystic specifically.
Olde Mistick Village: Dining Alongside the Shops
Olde Mistick Village, a Colonial-village-style shopping center dedicated on September 11, 1973 (land purchased in 1963 by Martin Olson, with the concept developed by twins Jerry and Joyce Olson and modeled on Peddler's Village in Bucks County, PA), now includes restaurants alongside its shops. This page does not have a confirmed, current count of how many restaurants operate within Olde Mistick Village today, so no specific number is given here -- check the property's own current directory for that.
Between downtown's cross-river restaurant row and Olde Mistick Village's own dining options, Mystic has more going on for a meal than Mystic Pizza alone -- but for the complete, current list of what's open, a live map or review site, or the Mystic Chamber of Commerce, will serve you far better than any static page, including this one.
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Get a Free Agent Referral →Independent research. No ads. No sponsored listings. Mystic Pizza's 1973 founding by the Zelepos family, its 56 West Main Street address, its inspiration for Amy Jones's 1988 screenplay, and the film's positive reception (including from Siskel and Ebert) are treated as confirmed background. The critical correction -- that the film's exterior was shot at 70 Water Street in Stonington, CT, with an interior set built for the movie, and that the real restaurant appears only in a brief driving-scene shot -- comes from a filming-locations research source and should be treated as the key myth-correction for this page. Mystic Pizza II (North Stonington) and the restaurant's nationally distributed frozen-pizza line are confirmed; current ownership, reflected only by a Shuta Productions website copyright credit, is not confirmed as a settled change from the founding Zelepos family. The broader downtown dining roster -- Bravo Bravo (20 East Main St.), Chapter One (32 West Main St.), Anthony J's Bistro (6 Holmes St.), Bartleby's (46 West Main St., since 1999), Captain Daniel Packer Inne (32 Water St., building dated to 1756 per the restaurant's own promotional materials, not independently verified against a historic register), 184 Pizzeria (2440 Gold Star Hwy.), Angie's Pizza & Pier 27 Lounge (25 Roosevelt Ave.), Christo's Pizza (Whitehall Ave.), Dog Watch Mystic/The Cove Restaurant (20 Old Stonington Rd.), Jealous Monk, and Rio Salado -- is drawn from See Mystic CT's own published restaurant guide (seemysticct.com), a tourism-site source, not from each restaurant's own site or a primary historic register; current hours, ownership, and menus were not independently re-verified and should be checked directly. Olde Mistick Village's September 11, 1973 dedication, 1963 land purchase by Martin Olson, and Jerry and Joyce Olson's Peddler's Village-inspired concept are confirmed; its current restaurant count is not. No current menu prices or specific current chef/owner names are included. For a complete and current restaurant roster, check a live map or review site, or the Mystic Chamber of Commerce, directly.