Pie Guy Pizza opens this Saturday, September 1, in The Grove.

“I didn’t want to be talking it up to the press ahead of time, promising we’d open soon, and then walk it back,” says co-owner Mitch Frost. “We had three soft openings that went well this past week. We’re ready.”

Frost and co-owner Joseph Faul are opening the pizzeria at 4189 Manchester, adjacent to Gezellig Tap House. On Fridays and Saturdays, the pizzeria will serve until 3 a.m., when many bars in the neighborhood close. It will be handing out free City Wide tall boys to the first 100 customers who order a slice or a pie on Saturday.

Pies are topped as customers dictate. “I stay out of it,” says Frost, who began tossing pizzas at Dewey's on Delmar when the restaurant opened 18 years ago. (When pressed, however, he divulges his own 'holy trinity of toppings': pineapple, jalapeños, and bacon or andouille sausage.)

In addition to pies and pizza by the slice, Pie Guy will offer salads and specialties. “I’m working on pizza nachos and cheesy breadsticks,” says Frost. “We start with crisp pizza dough pieces, then top it with Italian ingredients: sausage, a pesto sauce that substitutes for guacamole, ricotta in place of sour cream. It’s a good dish.”

Family and friends helped make this weekend’s opening possible. On Thursday, sign artist Dan Ricketts, who went to high school with Frost, was hand-painting the Pie Guy logo and hours on the front door. Jerry Frost, Mitch's dad (pictured together below), had a checklist to go over in the kitchen. “My dad’s done so much on this place,” says Frost, “and my uncle, Matt Symons, painted it... My old boss from Dewey’s, Tate Elder, was with me in the kitchen during the soft openings.”

Even Faul, whose background is in finance, is learning the art of pizza-making, helping out in the kitchen during the soft openings. “I’m working my way up to the pizza toss, though,” he says.

Editor's Note: This story has been updated from an earlier version.