One of Leelanau County’s most popular restaurants is expanding to Traverse City.

Eric Nittolo, owner and head chef at Nittolo’s Seafood & Pizza in Lake Leelanau, is preparing to open a new restaurant concept called Nittolo’s Little Italy in the Breakwater complex on Garland Street. Nittolo tells The Ticker that demolition is underway to convert the space – formerly occupied by the Cut and Run coffee shop – into a 60-seat eatery.

The restaurant is tentatively slated to open in April 2025 and will bring a version of the Nittolo’s menu to downtown Traverse City, with a new focus on economical dining.

“I’ve been a part of very expensive restaurants my whole life, but we're looking at Traverse City and asking, ‘What happened?’” Nittolo says. “I love going out to eat, but these days, you sit down for lunch and it's $100. It’s just gotten too expensive for the average person. What I think we can offer with this smaller establishment is what I like to call ‘dining for the people.’”

An alumnus of the Great Lakes Culinary Institute at Northwestern Michigan College, Nittolo opened his Lake Leelanau restaurant in 2021 after years of cooking elsewhere in town, including a run as executive chef at the Boathouse and stints at Lochenheath Golf Club and Reflect Bistro at the Cambria Hotel & Suites.

The Traverse City location will be a scaled-down version of Nittolo’s Seafood & Pizza. Where the Lake Leelanau restaurant focuses on big family-style dishes, Nittolo’s Little Italy will serve the same food in smaller portions. Nittolo is hopeful the smaller portions, combined with a smaller space, will allow for a more affordable menu.

“There’s been so much talk about rising food costs, but we actually didn’t see every ingredient we use skyrocket in price,” Nittolo says. “A few items, sure; white anchovies went from $25 a container to $90. But the pizza flour we use, that costs the same as it did a few years ago. It’s actually the electric bill that’s costing us a lot more in Lake Leelanau; it's the water bill; it’s labor; it’s things like that.”

Nittolo’s Little Italy will also offer a seven-days-a-week happy hour from 3-5pm, with discounts on pastas, pizzas, appetizers, and beverages.

“I wrote a line of pastas for $9 because I want people to be able to come in and eat for $9. You can’t even do that at Olive Garden anymore,” he says. 

“We're not going to change anything; we're just going to portion control it,” Nittolo adds. “I did this before, at Cambria; it was happy hour mania in there. We did half the price, we did a smaller portion, and people were all over it.”

For dinner hours, from 5-10pm nightly, Nittolo says his goal is to keep just about every dish on the menu under $20. 

Nittolo’s Little Italy could prove to be just the first step in a broader expansion plan. Per Nittolo, Innovo – the developer and owner behind Breakwater – has already “guaranteed” him a ground-floor space at the nearby Godfrey, a new mixed-use development the company plans to build next year. The Godfrey isn’t expected to open until 2026, but Nittolo has already sketched out a pair of restaurant concepts for the space: a morning brunch spot called Mimosas and a dinner restaurant called Avant Garde. Nittolo likens the latter to Alliance, the acclaimed shared plates restaurant that closed its doors in the Warehouse District in 2021.

Nittolo says he’s also been approached “by someone in Elk Rapids” about opening a second Nittolo’s Little Italy restaurant there, and has even gotten a few inquiries from other parts of the state about potentially franchising.

For now, though, the restauranteur says he’s focused on downtown Traverse City, which he calls a literal dream-come-true milestone.

“I tried many, many times to get something going in downtown TC,” Nittolo says. “Eight years ago, we had all the money lined up to open something on Union Street, but we just couldn’t make it happen. And then Breakwater approached us with an unbelievable deal, and it was just the perfect fit. I remember thinking, ‘Wow, there's more people [in the Breakwater building] than in the entire community of Lake Leelanau!’ There is just a major difference between Lake Leelanau and Traverse City, and we’re so excited to open up down there.”