Construction signs outside the new Piesanos Stone Fired Pizza at 2259 Dr. Randy McDaniel Way in Middleton now carry a different message: the restaurant is hiring and training staff ahead of a fall opening. Mandatory training sessions are scheduled to run this week, from Tuesday through Saturday, following an employee orientation held Monday, with no firm grand-opening date announced yet.
Those training dates come from recruitment listings posted on Workstream, which also show kitchen team wages set between $16.50 and $20.00 per hour for line cooks, pizza makers, and other kitchen staff. As Villages-News.com reports, construction on the Middleton building has already wrapped according to posted signs, and the restaurant will include both a dining room for sit-down customers and a separate building dedicated to takeout orders.
That takeout structure isn't an afterthought. Piesanos marketing leadership told Business Debut in May that the Middleton location is a 150-seat build using the chain's next-generation prototype, complete with an indoor-outdoor bar, a patio facing a community splash pad, and the brand's largest dedicated Express To-Go building to date. Once open, the restaurant will give Piesanos three locations across The Villages, joining existing spots at Southern Trace and Lake Deaton, per the same report from Villages-News.com.
A Family-Focused Pizza Chain With a Perfect Track Record
Piesanos is known for its specialty pizzas, calzones, and gourmet pastas, all cooked in natural granite stone conveyor ovens. Those ovens, manufactured by Hot Rocks, provide a consistent bake while standardizing kitchen operations across every store, according to a case study published by Hot Rocks Oven.
The chain traces its roots to a single full-service pizzeria near the University of Florida. Piesanos Stone Fired Pizza was founded in Gainesville in 2009 by Joel Mills, Michael Akey, Michelle Akey, and Laure Young, and by late 2025 had expanded to 15 locations across the state without ever closing a store, according to PMQ Pizza Magazine. That 15th location opened in October 2025 at Southern Trace Plaza in The Villages as a streamlined 3,000-square-foot prototype built for off-premise efficiency and faster service, Pizza Marketplace reported at the time.
The company also has a philanthropic tradition tied to new openings. For every new store, Piesanos hosts a pre-opening Friends & Family soft-opening weekend that donates 50% of all alcohol sales directly to local Habitat for Humanity housing initiatives, according to the company's own community page.
Middleton's Growing Restaurant Row
The Middleton location sits along a stretch of Dr. Randy McDaniel Way that has quickly filled in with dining and entertainment tenants. The corridor has seen a wave of 2026 additions, including Woodrow's Duckpin at 2291 and Fiesta Grande Mexican Grill at 2181, as Hoodline detailed in its recent coverage of Woodrow's Duckpin opening on the same street.
Portillo's also picked the corridor for its debut in The Villages market, opening a customized 4,300-square-foot location at 2283 Dr. Randy McDaniel Way in August 2025. That restaurant adopted a smaller, dine-in-only prototype without a drive-thru, a format chosen specifically to fit the corridor's pedestrian foot traffic, according to Villages-News.com's sister outlet, Lake and Sumter Style.
Built for a Different Kind of Villages Neighborhood
Middleton itself stands apart from the age-restricted retirement neighborhoods that define most of The Villages. The Villages publicly unveiled Middleton in September 2021 as a master-planned family community intended to provide housing, charter schooling, and commercial amenities specifically for employees, educators, and healthcare staff serving the broader Villages region. Its commercial core sits near The Villages Charter School campuses, anchoring a corridor built for families rather than retirees.
That buildout fits a broader pattern of commercial growth in the surrounding county. Commercial construction permitting in Sumter County reached $1.3 billion in total valuation in 2021 alone, according to Sumter County Development Services, underscoring the scale of development that has accompanied projects like Middleton.
For now, the countdown in Middleton is measured in training shifts rather than a posted calendar date. With orientation and training sessions running through Saturday and construction already finished, the pizzeria appears close to welcoming its first customers, even as Piesanos has yet to confirm exactly when that will happen.
