Exterior of Ashtabula’s Covered Bridge Pizza Parlor & Eatery (photo by Rachael Jirousek)
Food + Drink

Eat at This Pizza Parlor Inside a Covered Bridge

This Ashtabula County restaurant is housed in a repurposed structure that its founder Gary Hewitt bought for $5 in 1972.

Yes, the Covered Bridge Pizza Parlor is housed in an actual covered bridge. Formerly known as Ashtabula County’s Eagleville Covered Bridge, the wooden structure dates to 1862. Gary Hewitt purchased it for $5 at an auction in 1972 when it was being replaced.

“He and another guy took it piece by piece,” says Renee Hewitt, Gary Hewitt’s daughter, who today operates Covered Bridge Pizza Parlor with her brother, Paul Hewitt. “It was stored at my grandparents’ [home] for a couple of years before the south end of it was built in North Kingsville, and then a few years later, he took the other half of it and built another place in Andover.”

The siblings took over in 2018, and the parlor continues to make the pizzas using a family recipe. Variations of their mother’s pizza recipe were previously crafted in the Hewitt home and have been enjoyed by customers since the 1960s.

Covered Bridge Pizza Parlor’s large menu spans salads, spaghetti and pizzas ranging from garlic to Hawaiian to taco, but pepperoni is by far the favorite, according to the siblings.

“People move away and come back,” says Paul Hewitt. “And they can’t wait to stop here to get one of our pizzas.” 6541 N. Main St., North Kingsville 44068, 440/224-2252