Mike Pitera on building camaraderie, celebrating local pizzerias, and sharing the love of pizza.
Fresh off organizing the first annual Lowcountry Pizza Fest on September 14, Mike Pitera, owner of Pizza A Modo Mio in Charleston, South Carolina, and a member of PMQ’s U.S. Pizza Team (USPT), couldn’t help but reflect on what it meant to finally see the idea come alive.
“I started [it] with the Low Country Eat Out group with Christine England here in Charleston,” he said. “We had about 400 attendants—300 ticket sales and about 100 walk-ins. We had 10 pizzerias total: seven from around the Lowcountry and three from out of state with the U.S. Pizza Team.”
The motivation was simple: bring people together through pizza. “I always wanted a big gathering of our community to share the love of pizza,” Pitera recalled. “And what better way to do it than with a pizza fest? I wanted camaraderie between the pizzerias here in the Lowcountry, and also to include the U.S. Pizza Team and our sponsors like Galbani and US Foods. We wanted a nice venue to bring everyone together and share the love of pizza, so we were lucky to be able to team up with 
The Refinery right here in Charleston.”
That vision came with plenty of behind-the-scenes effort. “It wasn’t as easy as I thought,” he admitted. “There was a lot of back-end office work. Christine England killed it though. We had to handle logistics with the Refinery, make sure the right pizzerias wanted to be part of it, and get everyone set up. A lot of groundwork—but it was all worth it. It was a very successful day, beautiful weather, and everyone seemed to have a great time.”
Pitera also enlisted support from the USPT itself, with several teammates making the trip down to South Carolina’s Lowcountry to serve pizzas and help make the event a success. Among those traveling members were George and Patti Taylor of Taylors’ Pizza House in Endwell, New York; Sean Dempsey of Dempsey’s Brewery Pub & Restaurant in Watertown, South Dakota; and Nicholas and Emily Harper of Peace of Pie on Hartwell in Fair Play, South Carolina—all bringing their own flavors and stories to Charleston’s first big pizza gathering.
“Wow, what a turnout!” Nicholas Harper said. “We fired up our Ooni Karu ovens, served our Margherita, and had an absolute blast from start to finish. [It was] another amazing event with the United States Pizza Team!”
Read more in the article “A Team Effort: USPT Members Rally for the Lowcountry Pizza Fest”
For Pitera, the highlight was clear. “My favorite part was walking around and meeting the community, seeing smiles on everyone’s faces as they tried pizza from different pizzerias in Charleston. Everyone was happy, enjoying themselves, coming out on a Sunday afternoon and loving the event. All that hard work definitely paid off.”
And yes—this was just the beginning. “Yeah, next year,” Pitera added. “If you didn’t come this year, you missed out. Come next year—we’ll have more pizzerias, larger attendance, maybe some games, bigger dough stretches, more acrobatics, more pizza, and just more fun. Year one went great. We can’t wait for year two.”
