‘Whole in the Wall Pizza’ opens in Rosalia

Keely Campbell and Bryce Ryen stand in the hole between the Rosalia country store and Campbell’s restaurant.

Campbell’s handwritten chalk menu takes up much of the space on one of the walls.

Rosalia’s newest business and restaurant had such a successful March 1 opening night that proprietor Keely Campbell had to add an additional oven to meet the demand the next day.

“It was insane,” Campbell said. “I had 40 to 50 people in the door at 5 p.m. The wait was long.”

Campbell opened the doors to Whole in the Wall Pizza on Whitman Avenue in Rosalia last Tuesday, and by Friday, her fourth day in business, she said she was starting to see some regular customers.

“We’ve already had repeat customers a few times,” she said.

On Wednesday, she added her additional oven for a total of three ovens, each of which can cook a pizza in 12 minutes, she said. And business didn’t slow down.

“Yesterday (Thursday) was busier than opening night,” Campbell said. “The support has been crazy.”

Campbell lives in Malden with her husband, Bobby, and two daughters, Capyrce, who will be 8 this month, and Novah, who is 4 months old. Bobby works in Pine City as a machinist and welder, and Capryce attends the Rosalia school. Novah comes with her to work.

“I don’t have a babysitter. My daughter walks down here after school, and the baby stays with me. My husband comes and picks them up when he gets off work,” she said.

Campbell said that she is happy to be working again. She previously worked at the Brass Rail for three-and-a-half years before Novah was born.

“I was going crazy at home,” she said.

Working with her is her brother-in-law, Bryce Ryen from Coeur d’Alene. She is happy to be working with him.

“It’s just the two of us,” Campbell said. “We work well together. He’s my right hand.”

Campbell said that she is excited to offer families in Rosalia a place to eat.

“There are a lot of families here with younger kids,” she said.

When she was deciding on a business venture, one of the things that was important to her was taking into consideration the other businesses in Rosalia.

“I didn’t want to compete with any of the other businesses here,” Campbell said.

Another thing to take into consideration was her ancestry.

“I’m Italian,” she said, “so I wanted to do Italian food.”

Her pizza recipe comes from a family recipe.

“My grandma, that generation, always did homemade everything,” Campbell said. “So I used her recipe, and I changed and tweaked it a little.”

“Homemade dough – that’s the game changer on pizza,” Campbell said.

In deciding on the business name, she took the inspiration from the space she is leasing from Matt and Heather Smith, who operate the country store next door. The two businesses are connected by a hole in the wall, and customers can walk between the businesses. She decided to go with “whole” instead of “hole” to represent her pizzas.

“We do whole pizzas,” Campbell said.

Right now, she does not offer pizza by the slice, but she said she expects to in the future. Campbell said she expects that business will level out in the next few weeks.

“It’s not going to be crazy like this the whole time,” she said. “If I can keep people coming back, I think we will be just fine. It has been so long since there has been anything.”

Campbell added that she was surprised with the turnout the first few days because she did minimal advertising.

“We only started advertising the Friday before,” she said.

Campbell also said she hopes to keep her business family friendly. She has a TV mounted on the wall for entertainment.

“I have a TV that is either on music or on the Disney Channel,” she said.

And kids are always welcome, she said.

“I don’t really care if the kids run around the hallway,” Campbell said.

She added that she is hoping to add things such as coloring books so that people can entertain themselves in a wait.

“If it’s busy, the wait can be almost a half hour,” she said. “I’m wanting to bring in some stuff for kids to do.”

The hours at Whole in the Wall Pizza will be Tuesday through Saturday from 11-9 and Sundays from 9-4. Campbell said she is also planning on adding a breakfast pizza to the menu soon in addition to adding more specialty pizzas.

“I don’t have a breakfast pizza yet, but I plan on incorporating one,” she said. “And I’m going to be keeping these (pizzas) because they have been a hit.”