Whistle Stop Pizza Restaurant Offers Another Local Favorite

Pawcatuck, Stonington and Westerly residents may have been feeling empty inside since the Whistle Stop Café closed. The breakfast/lunch diner was a convenient gathering place for residents to meet, catch up and grab a bite to eat and now, thanks to a Ilias Dervos and his wife Georgia, locals can put the Whistle Stop back on their itinerary. 

Everything but the name has changed. The Palmer Street eatery re-opened last Tuesday after receiving a facelift to the outside, a total renovation on the inside and a brand new menu. 

The Whistle Stop Pizza Restaurant now serves pizza, grinders, pasta and seafood diners, platters and salads – to name a few. 

Dervos says it took him seven months to fix up the place and that everything is different. He lost 40 pounds renovating the century old building. 

“It’s all new,” he said. “If you saw it before you wouldn’t recognize it.” 

He said he landed in Pawcatuck because he “got a good deal on the building” and he like the area.  

“I like the town, it’s a little world away from the other areas,” said the New London resident. “They’re more traditional here.” 

And tradition is what he is banking on. Dervos hopes his traditional Greek-style pizza and dinners and fair prices will make his place a local favorite. The menu is packed with options. The least expensive thing on the menu is a grilled cheese sandwich which goes for $2.95. The large chicken broccoli alfredo tops the menu at $18.00. 

The Dervoses have been in the pizza business for more than 30 years. You may already know them from Bozrah Pizza, which they have been running for more than 25 years or from Quaker Hill Pizza, which they ran for years before opening up in Bozrah.