Two More Units Coming
Colony Grill, the Connecticut-born thin-crust bar-pie chain founded in Stamford in 1935, is adding two Hartford County restaurants slated to open in 2027 — one in Newington and one in South Windsor — pushing the brand deeper into a state market where it has been systematically filling in suburban trade areas.
The announcements land just ahead of the brand's Glastonbury opening, meaning Colony Grill will have added at least three Connecticut locations in close succession. With existing outposts across Connecticut, New York, Virginia, and Florida, the chain is building out its Northeast density before pressing further into mid-Atlantic and Southeast markets.
Location Details
The Newington restaurant at 3260 Berlin Turnpike will seat more than 175 guests with a large patio — and marks a format first: Colony Grill's inaugural fully private dining room. The dedicated space targets team dinners, corporate outings, and milestone celebrations, a daypart and occasion set that independent pizza operators and fast-casual chains alike have been chasing as group dining rebounds post-pandemic. The room sits alongside a 12-tap bar and multiple TV screens oriented toward the sports-bar guest who has long been Colony Grill's core.
The South Windsor unit at 255 Gateway Blvd. lands inside Buckland Gateway, a new mixed-use development combining retail, dining, and community space. At roughly 150 seats plus a patio, the restaurant mirrors the Newington format — 12 taps, TVs, Bar Pie menu — while drawing from the foot-traffic blend of residents, office workers, and visitors that mixed-use centers are designed to generate. Phoebe Sager, Principal of Sager Development, called Colony Grill "exactly the kind of tenant we envisioned for the project," citing the brand's loyal Connecticut following.
What It Means for the Channel
For trade observers tracking the bar-pizza segment, Colony Grill's methodical county-by-county Hartford build-out is worth watching. The brand competes in a niche — thin-crust, bar-style, Hot Oil topping, simple menu — that sits comfortably between full-service casual dining and the fast-casual pizza segment dominated by Blaze and MOD. That positioning has historically produced strong repeat visits and high community embeddedness, two metrics that matter as foodservice operators fight for the same suburban family occasions that convenience-foodservice programs also target on the fuel-stop side.
The private dining room addition at Newington signals an incremental revenue push into catering and events — a line item that full-service pizza concepts increasingly view as a margin lever when ingredient costs stay elevated. CEO and co-owner Paul Coniglio framed the expansion around community integration: "We've grown this concept around great pizza bringing people together," he said, pointing to post-practice team dinners and family weeknight visits as the brand's proof of concept.
For foodservice and restaurant industry coverage from the Food & Beverage Magazine network, Colony Grill's Hartford push fits a broader pattern of regional pizza chains using mixed-use real estate deals to accelerate unit growth without the ground-up construction timelines that slow larger QSR operators. Operators tracking pizza-segment expansion and regional-chain real-estate strategy will want to mark the 2027 open dates on the calendar.
Written by Michael Politz, Author of Guide to Restaurant Success: The Proven Process for Starting Any Restaurant Business From Scratch to Success (ISBN: 978-1-119-66896-1), Founder of Food & Beverage Magazine, the leading online magazine and resource in the industry. Designer of the Bluetooth logo and recognized in Entrepreneur Magazine's "Top 40 Under 40" for founding American Wholesale Floral, Politz is also the Co-founder of the Proof Awards and the CPG Awards and a partner in numerous consumer brands across the food and beverage sector.
