A Clermont restaurant known for its airy, oval-shaped take on Italian flatbread is setting its sights on downtown Leesburg. Pinsa Fire has listed a location at 404 W Main Street as coming soon, a sign that Lake County's pinsa footprint is about to grow.
The restaurant's website names the Leesburg address directly, reading, “LEESBURG: Coming Soon! 404 W Main Street Leesburg FL 34748,” according to pinsafire.com. That would mark the brand's second storefront, joining its existing restaurant at 793 W Montrose Street in Clermont. As WhatNow reported, the Leesburg project would extend the concept to another city within Lake County, though no opening date has been announced.
Some public paperwork hints at activity at the Main Street address. A Leesburg historic-preservation board agenda references a case tied to 404 W Main Street and identified with Pinsa Fire, describing partial demolition and renovations at the site. That reference comes from a search-result snippet of the city's agenda document rather than a fully verified reading of the filing, so the scope and status of the work remain unclear.
What Exactly Is a Pinsa
For the uninitiated, pinsa is an oval-shaped, Roman-style flatbread often pitched as a lighter alternative to traditional pizza. Pinsa Fire's version relies on a particular dough blend: the restaurant's website describes a crust made with zero wheat flour, rice flour and sourdough, cold-fermented for 72 hours to create what the company calls a light, airy and crispy texture, per pinsafire.com.
In an interview with OrlandoVoyager, owner Thomas Cerra offered a slightly different rundown of the recipe, describing the dough as made with zero wheat flour, rice flour, soy flour and a sourdough starter. Cerra told the outlet that the dough carries around 7% gluten, compared to roughly 20% in traditional pizza dough, a difference he says shapes the final crust's texture. The restaurant builds its pinsas on hand-pressed crusts supplied by Pedone Pinsa, according to a profile from Pedone Pinsa.
From a 120-Square-Foot Kiosk to a Growing Brand
Cerra's path to running Pinsa Fire started small. He told OrlandoVoyager that he bought the business after moving to Florida, taking over what he described as a 120-square-foot kiosk inside a food hall. That origin story frames the Clermont restaurant's current build-your-own program, which the company says includes more than 40 ingredients, per pinsafire.com.
The Clermont menu covers familiar territory alongside more adventurous options. Pedone Pinsa's profile lists classic styles such as margherita, pepperoni, Meatball, DiaVola and Carnivore pinsas, alongside signature creations including Guava & Cheese, Fig & Prosciutto, Cubano and Lemon Pesto Chicken. For those who prefer to customize, the build-your-own list includes sauces like tomato, pesto and dijonnaise, meats such as Calabrese salami and prosciutto, and vegetables ranging from zucchini to pineapple, the same profile notes.
Sizing is straightforward by Cerra's account: the 9-inch pinsa is meant for a single diner, while the 12-inch can feed two, he told OrlandoVoyager. The restaurant also runs a lunch special Monday through Thursday, according to the same interview.
No Timeline Yet for the Lake County Expansion
Whether any of that Clermont menu, sizing or lunch-special structure will carry over to Leesburg has not been independently confirmed, and Pinsa Fire has not announced an opening date for the new location. The broader Central Florida market has seen other Roman-style pinsa concepts emerge in the same stretch of time; Orlando Weekly reported in June that Daje Pinsa was planning to open along South Orange Avenue in Orlando this fall, a separate concept that describes itself as the city's destination for “authentic, light, and highly digestible Roman-style pinsa,” per its own website. For now, Leesburg diners curious about pinsa will have to keep an eye on the Main Street storefront for signs of progress.
