Popular Pizzas & Cream adding a second location at Park Place in South Charleston

A supreme pizza hot out of the oven at Pizzas & Cream in Nebo

A few tickets remain for this Saturday's Capital Cocktail Classic

A popular roadside pizza and ice cream spot in Clay County is adding a second location in South Charleston. This, my foodie friends, is VERY big news.

Blackberry cobbler ice cream from Pizzas & Cream

Since opening in 2015, Pizzas & Cream in Nebo has gained a passionate fanbase – not to mention plenty of accolades and media coverage – for its loaded wood-fired pizzas and silky homemade ice creams served in rustic surroundings on a small farm.

As in, you’ll dine on picnic tables with chickens cluck-clucking around your feet.

While you shouldn’t expect chickens at the new location in an urban shopping center, you can look forward to Pizzas & Cream’s same mouthwatering savory and sweet eats featuring fresh local ingredients when they open in the growing Park Place retail complex across from Riverwalk Mall in South Charleston.

BBQ pulled pork pizza from Pizzas & Cream

Pizzas & Creams is the latest business announced for the development, which already includes a Starbuck and Chick-fil-A, with announcements that Mission BBQ and Chipotle will be adding locations there as well. Construction at the new Pizzas & Cream location hasn’t started yet, but co-owner Stephen Miller said they hope to be open by summer of 2026.

If you’ve been to the original restaurant in Nebo, you already know how good the food is. What you may not know is how the place got started, which is a really great story.

When his wife was out of town visiting her parents years ago, Ed Miller and son Stephen decided to plan a little surprise for when she got back. Figuring it was better to ask for forgiveness instead of permission, Ed decided to build a large wood-fired pizza oven in their backyard similar to ones he and wife Joy had seen on their 25^th anniversary trip to Italy

Coffee toffee gelato from Pizzas & Cream

Lucky for Ed, Joy neither killed nor divorced him when she returned and experimenting with the new oven actually became a treasured family hobby. That led them to perfecting the recipe for their family pizza, which they then started sharing with friends and others in the community. People went crazy over their pizzas, demand spread like wildfire and, eventually, a new restaurant was born.

Just over 10 years later, that same demand has led to an expansion in the Kanawha Valley. And we are so lucky for it.

For more information and updates, visit www.pizzasandcream.com or visit the restaurant’s Facebook page.

Last call for the Capital Cocktail Classic

Well not exactly last call (you can still get tickets while supplies last!) but we’re only a few days away from this Saturday’s Capital Cocktail Classic, a fun and competitive downtown Charleston pub crawl hosted by WV Fund for the Arts where you get to help pick the evening’s winners.

Heirloom Tomato Pie from Pizzas & Cream

From 4 to 7 p.m. that day, ticketed guests can visit the four participating downtown restaurants and bars at their leisure, sampling a signature cocktail and tapas pairing at each location. Then at the end of the night, you’ll cast your vote for who served the best drink and best dish this year.

So are you following me here? That’s four drinks and four dishes for just $60, plus you’re supporting 11 local arts organizations in the process. That’s a win-win if I saw one.

If you need a refresher on the food and drink pairings being offered this Saturday, be sure to cfheck out my delicious roundup at https://bit.ly/4pEpmmY. For more information or to purchase tickets, visit https://bit.ly/4o5ohUp.

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Steven Keith is a food writer and restaurant critic known as “The Food Guy” who writes a weekly column for the Charleston Gazette-Mail and has appeared in several state, regional and national culinary publications. Follow him online at www.wvfoodguy.com or on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Pinterest. He can be reached at wvfoodguy@aol.com.