Figlio Wood Fired Pizza, a small but long-running chain with a menu inspired in part by Wolfgang Puck, is closing one of its stores in Columbus, Ohio, after 28 years in operation, owners Peter and Laurie Danis announced recently on Facebook.

Figlio’s original location on Grandview Avenue and its Dayton, Ohio, location will remain open. But the restaurant in the suburb of Upper Arlington will shut down on July 29. The Golden Bear Center, the plaza in which that store is located, is being redeveloped, and the Danises agreed to be out of the space by early September, according to 614now.com.

“The time has come for us to move on to new opportunities and make room for the redevelopment of the Golden Bear Center in Upper Arlington,” the Danises said in a July 10 post on Facebook. “You enhanced our lives in many ways and gave us the opportunity to work with such a great staff for 28 years….Great food, great service, great memories!”

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The Facebook post said many of the Upper Arlington staff would be transferred to the Grandview Avenue location.

Peter and Laurie Danis met in the 1980s when they were both studying law at Ohio State University. After practicing law for several years, they switched careers and opened Figlio Wood Fired Pizza in November 1991.

But first they had to nail down their dough recipe. And, as City Scene Columbus reported in April 2021, the Danises were particularly interested in a recipe from a cookbook authored by Wolfgang Puck, then an up-and-coming chef and restaurateur.

There was just one problem: They were confused by the recipe. It seemed too simple, and, as detail-oriented lawyers, they wanted to get it exactly right. “Every word is important, so we decided, ‘There’s only one way to figure out, did he mean this or did he mean that?’” Peter Danis told City Scene Columbus. “We bought plane tickets to San Francisco in search of Wolfgang Puck.”

They tracked down Puck at one of his restaurants, Postrio, and caught his attention as he was heading for the kitchen. “He explained to us that some things are very classic and simple,” Peter Danis said. “People had been baking dough for 1,000 years in wood-fired ovens. It was that simple. So we thanked him and enjoyed a fabulous meal prepared by him and his staff.”

After opening the first Figlio location on Grandview Avenue, the Danises went on to open a second store in Upper Arlington in 1995 and a third in Dayton in 2003.

In a September 2015 review, the Columbus Dispatch described Figlio’s pies as “top-tier,” adding, “They arrive from a hearth-like oven with good, judiciously applied toppings above thin-and-crisp crusts that are attractively puffy, charred and smoke-scented toward the edge.”