Georgina's Restaurant & Pizzeria, the New York-style pizzeria that has anchored the Morrisville Market shopping center for two decades, will close for good on August 31, 2026. The DeMattia family announced the closure in a Facebook post, thanking customers for two decades of support after opening the restaurant in 2006.
Owners Roe and Tom DeMattia are New York natives who relocated to North Carolina from Queens in 2005, according to The News & Observer. They opened the pizzeria the following year and named it after their middle child, Georgina, a detail Cary Magazine reported when it profiled the business years ago. The restaurant sits at 3536 Davis Drive inside the Morrisville Market shopping center, per the same account.
For most of its run, Georgina's built its menu around hand-tossed thin-crust New York-style pizza sold by the slice or pie, along with Sicilian, Grandma, and gluten-free options baked in Baker's Pride commercial ovens. The kitchen also turned out garlic knots, calamari, and classic Italian pastas, according to the News & Observer's reporting. Sauces were made from scratch in-house, and most of the fresh vegetables came directly from local North Carolina farmers markets, the outlet's report notes.
A Neighborhood Fixture Winds Down
This week, Georgina's is operating takeout only, but the restaurant plans to return to full service before its final day on August 31. The pizzeria hosted weekly live bands over the years and became known for handing children dough balls to play with while their families waited for a table. It also stayed active with area schools, churches, and the Morrisville Fire Department, cultivating the kind of neighborhood goodwill that kept generations of local families coming back.
That community-first approach unfolded against a backdrop of explosive growth around the restaurant. Morrisville's population swelled from roughly 5,200 residents in 2000 to more than 33,000 by late 2025, according to the Town of Morrisville. The town's demographics also shifted dramatically, with an Asian population reaching 46% by 2020 and Asian Indian residents making up approximately 36% of the total population, the town's data shows — a transformation of the very customer base Georgina's had served since it first opened its doors.
Part Of A Broader Wake County Pattern
Georgina's closure follows a string of shutdowns among Wake County's long-running independent Italian restaurants. Bocci Trattoria & Pizzeria in nearby Cary closed in April 2026 after 16 years, as Hoodline reported in its piece on the last Triangle Bocci location shutting down. The pattern comes even as North Carolina's broader restaurant industry remains active, with the foodservice and drinking places sector employing 411,100 workers as of February 2026 and generating close to $1.95 billion in monthly taxable sales, according to the North Carolina Restaurant & Lodging Association.
Wake County's dining scene also generates significant public revenue through its 1% Prepared Food and Beverage Tax, which contributed to $157 million in local tax revenue from $3.2 billion in total visitor spending in 2023, according to Raleigh city government figures. Whether rising costs, lease terms, or a decision to step back after two decades in the business drove the DeMattias to close Georgina's has not been detailed publicly; the family's Facebook announcement focused on gratitude toward customers rather than the reasons behind the decision.
Georgina's exit adds to a year that has already reshaped Wake County's pizza landscape, from Bocci's closure in Cary to newer, family-focused ventures opening elsewhere, including the Raleigh slice arcade for kids that debuted in May. For now, Morrisville diners have until the end of August to grab one more slice, pie, or plate of calamari from the pizzeria that grew up alongside their town.
