Return to the glory days: New Pizza Lane owner takes over mainstay, injecting life back into restaurant

One of Sumter's oldest, local independent restaurants that has always had a local nostalgic theme is "back and here to stay," as its new owner has worked to restore it to its glory days.

New Pizza Lane owner Tony Barwick and its original owner Billy Lane spoke recently on Barwick's renovations, upfits and new menu additions to the restaurant in the last year to breathe life back into the establishment, and the various investments have Lane tickled pink.

A Sumter business owner with numerous ventures but mostly known for his Palmetto Pigeon Plant, Barwick bought the Pizza Lane building on Broad Street from its out-of-state owner and also took over running the restaurant in 2025.

Immediately he began renovations to the outside and inside of the restaurant to include everything from updated signage of the Pizza Lane name scripted in the Broadway font on the front of the building, new ceilings and flooring to new cooking equipment in the kitchen.

Barwick's fixer-upper project has totaled more than $100,000, he said, and includes new sound systems and 11 new flat-screen TVs throughout the 4,500-square-foot building.

A Sumter native, Lane started Pizza Lane - originally under the Pizza Inn franchise name - in 1979, and a claim to fame was when he remodeled the restaurant about 1990 with a nostalgic theme to include numerous Sumter artifacts.

Those include a barber pole from the former Victory Barbershop in the downtown area.

Much of the memorabilia remained on display after Lane retired and sold the business in 2009, and Barwick has tried to maintain that Sumter history as much as possible in his renovations, he said.

Lane said he was already a collector when he began the restaurant and when people were remodeling local establishments and getting rid of older items, he would go get them and put them in his pizza establishment. Some of his own memorabilia he had collected from elsewhere is also on display.

Lane, who is now 84, got the nostalgic theme remodeling idea in about 1989 from a contractor who worked with Pizza Inn franchises in North Carolina, and he thought it would be great for his restaurant, he said.

When the pizza place opened in 1979, Barwick said he was 17 years old, and it became a great place to hang out with friends.

"I'm 64 years old now," he said. "Literally, I started coming here when I could drive and it opened. Back then, there were not big choices in Sumter, so when something new opened you went and tried it out. Everybody did. It was a great place for young people to go."

Since then, generations of Sumterites have frequented Pizza Lane, he added, including his own kids and grandchildren.

Under Barwick, the restaurant recently moved back to being open seven days a week like when Lane operated it.

The new owner calls his purchase and full-scale update of Pizza Lane "a sentimental project."

"You want to preserve things for your kids and grandchildren," Barwick said. "Pizza Lane is part of Sumter, but it is part of the people of Sumter.

"People will come in and say: 'You see right there. Right there is where we had our first date' and point to the booth. How do you do away with something like that? You got to preserve that.

"As I get a little older, a little more sentimental, I want to preserve our history, too.

"You want to make money and you have got to understand that, but they can both work together. When people see you preserving their history, they want to support you. And it's worked here. Pizza Lane is fine, and it's set to go for years and years. We're back to being in the kind of shape that Mr. Billy had it in when he left."

MORE ON VENTURE

Barwick said the pigeon plant remains his primary focus, but he loves Pizza Lane because it is so personal, compared to his plant operation.

"The pigeon plant has been my real focus, but this has been fun," he added.

"I really like that you walk in here and you talk to your customers. You get to know your customer a lot better. It's just more of a personal business.

"I guess that is part of the restaurant business. And I have always loved food. The pigeon plant is in the food business also, but I have really enjoyed that part of this."

Barwick said there will continue to be some menu additions including hotdogs, hamburgers, subs, a chicken sandwich, "but we will always be a pizza place."

Its thin-crust pizza has always been unique and is Pizza Lane's specialty, he added.

In his menu additions, Barwick also brought back the restaurant's Fair Fries that Lane first started. Those are cut fresh daily from potatoes and are crispier than other French fries, the new owner said.

Barwick added a third buffet, and there is now a salad bar and two hot buffets.

The buffet is a big focus and also fresh ingredients that are high quality, he said. The buffet begins at 11:30 a.m. daily for lunch.

"With the food business, if people like something and the service is really good, then they are willing to pay for it," Barwick added. "You can go eat our buffet and walk out of here for $15 and eat all you can eat. That's pizzas, a spaghetti casserole, at least one soup if not something else. There are chocolate chip cookies also. There will be a dessert pizza and a full salad bar for $15."

Back to Lane.

When he realized the business owner in North Carolina was selling Pizza Lane and that Barwick was interested, Lane and the longtime restaurant manager were grateful, he said.

"We were tickled to death that somebody from this town was interested in this business and knew the history of this business," Lane said. "We figure this is absolutely a perfect match.

"I call myself laughingly an 'unpaid financial consultant' now. I try to come by a lot. The biggest reason is not to see Tony, although I like to see him, I really like to see my old customers.

"The social part of running a restaurant is a lot more than people realize."