BUSINESS

Mama Sid's Pizza celebrates 30 years

Karah-Leigh Hancock
Shaun Waters, Jackson Camp and Miles Camp toss pizza dough as their father and grandfather, Jim Waters, looks on in the Mama Sid's Pizza restaurant on Wednesday, Jan. 30. (Karah-Leigh Hancock / Staff)

A lot happened in 1983: The first mobile phones were introduced to the public by Motorola, Sally Ride because the first woman in space and Michael Jackson's album "Thriller" was released.

It is also the year Mama Sid's Pizza opened up at its Barnett Shoals Road location. On Tuesday, the restaurant will celebrate its 30th anniversary.

"We're on our fourth generation of serving people who have come in," said Jim Waters, who opened the restaurant with his wife, Sidney Anne. Their son, Shaun, is now in charge of the restaurant.

"It's always been a family project and working with friends," said Sidney Ann Waters.

The decision to open a restaurant came after Jim Waters stopped teaching at the University of Georgia.

"We did not want to move with Shaun going into his senior year," Sidney Anne Waters said. "Jim taught recreation and leisure studies, which is training students to become park rangers, park managers, and the biggest part to a park is its concessions and he was well versed in it, so we started a restaurant."

The Waters bought a pizza place already in the location, but they knew they needed to come up with their own name.

"In eighth grade, all the guys would always try to figure out all the other guys' mother's name and call the guy that name, to make fun of them or whatever," Shaun Waters said. "Eventually, they saw my mom's name and they started calling me Sidney Anne. My closer friends got to where they called my Sid. It stuck to me and my friends when they came over to my house, they never called my parents Mr. and Mrs. Waters, it was Mama and Papa. Since they called me Sid, they started calling them Mama Sid and Papa Sid. And when we bought the store everybody was like, 'Well what are you going to call it? You gotta call it Mama Sid's."

At one point, Mama Sid's Pizza had four locations - in Watkinsville, Lexington, on Jefferson Road and Harris Street. But they closed one by one, and now just have the original restaurant remaining.

After 18 years, Jim decided to go back to teaching at Clarke Middle School and the Waters gave the restaurant to Shaun, who had been working with them since he was 15.

"We turned the store over to Shaun to run. He has done a very good job in these bad economic times," Sidney Anne Waters said. "The main thing we have tried to maintain is quality and service and even though we go through waves of service when you're hiring kids, we've tried to maintain the quality of our product because the recipe has not changed in 30 years. Outside of adding things to the menu, our menu has been the same for 30 years."

Among those items added to the restaurant over the years are subs, hot wings, pasta and even calzones. But the most popular pizza is still pepperoni. In January, they started having a BYOB service, where patrons can bring their own beer in.

"The kids still prefer cheese and we have some kids who like cheese and a couple of olives," Sidney Anne Waters said. Their grandson Jackson has invented his own pizza with pepperoni and dill pickles while his brother, Miles, invented a pizza with potato chips.

They also have a pizza buffet, but it's different from most restaurants. Pizza lovers can come in and order their favorite pizza for them to put on the buffet.

"Years ago, we just served pizza to you as an individual and then we started with the buffet and put whatever we wanted out there. Then several years ago, someone came in and said what they wanted and we started doing that," Jim said.

On Tuesday, Mama Sid's Pizza will be celebrating 30 years with a special - 30 percent off everything.

"We want people to know how very appreciative we really are for the community for supporting us all these years," Sidney Anne Waters said. "It's been a blessing."

• Follow reporter Karah-Leigh Hancock at www.facebook.com/KarahLHancockABH or www.twitter.com/KHancockABH.