Pita Pit prepares for grand opening

 Carrollton’s Pita Pit, located on Adamson Square beside Max & Henry’s, is currently in the final stages of construction and is set for its grand opening on March 6. 

 Pita Pit is an international chain which originated in Canada in 1995 and now has over 500 locations in 66 countries. Roughly 250 of these locations are in the United States and thanks to the hard work of UWG alumni John Crossley and Josh Pline, the franchise’s newest location will be right in the heart of Carrollton. 

 Crossley spent much of his time in college visiting other college towns in the Southeastern Conference with his fraternity brothers. He said that the one thing he could always count on was finding a PIta Pit with lines of customers outside of the doors. 

 “The first one I ate at was in Athens,” said Crossley. “I remember going out to eat and there was tons of food everywhere and I came back to Carrollton and there was nothing here. I always told myself that was strange and if I ever made it to graduation and somebody still hadn’t put a restaurant in downtown where kids could eat late at night that I was going to do it.” 

 When he was a senior at UWG Crossley took an entrepreneurship course in which the class was instructed to go to entrepreneur.com, choose one franchise and to go through the entire process of opening and running a business. To his surprise, Pita Pit was in the top 10 of the Franchise 500 list and the idea came to him. 

 After graduating from UWG Pline remained in Carrollton as an employee of Chick-fil-a and Crossley moved away for a few years for his job. Upon returning to Carrollton, Crossley found that there was still no late night spot for students to eat in Carrollton, so he began the process of bringing a Pita Pit to Adamson Square. 

 Both Pline and Crossley say they were drawn to Pita Pit because it is a completely different concept from the traditional sandwich. 

 “We take pita bread and we flash steam it in our steamers so it’s really loose and easy to work with, then we rip it open so we can throw everything inside,” said Pline. “The person on the grill has refrigerated drawers under the grill so they can pull it open, take out the meat and throw it on the grill. While it’s cooking you’re going to go down the line and fill out your sandwich and when it’s done they will scoop it up, put it in the sandwich and roll it up so that it looks like a burrito.” 

 “The best part about it is that it’s really fresh, healthy and lean food,” said Crossley. “We don’t have anything that’s fried and everything is made fresh, sliced fresh and grilled fresh.” 

 Crossley and Pline hope to partner with UWG through spirit nights and other special events in order to help support both the university and the community around it. They also hope to be able to accept Wolfbucks in the future and aim to have the system put in place in the fall of 2017. 

 Pita Pit will be open from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. on weekdays and from 10 a.m. to 2:30 a.m. on Thursdays through Saturdays.