Bergen Pickett

Looking for a little pizza, a bit of nostalgia and a lot of heart? There is a new reason to slow down on Maine Street.

Paolo’s, a New Jersey-inspired Italian restaurant, recently opened in the space that once held Nomad Pizza, tucked away in the old Fort Andross Mill. It has found its home next to its sister establishment, Jeremy and Marina Kratzer’s popular bagel shop, Dutchman’s Wood-Fired Bagels, which opened in 2022. Yet for the couple, Paolo’s was always the end goal.

“Dutchman’s is a way to take care of the community, whereas Paolo’s is their own way to give back to the community, and they’ve always wanted to open a restaurant,” general manager Matt Im said. “Restaurants are much harder to sustain. Margins are slimmer, competition is higher, but Jeremy saw the opportunity and said, ‘[Let’s] keep the spirit alive in the space.’”

Between the closure of Nomad in November 2024 and the opening of Paolo’s this June, the space entered a renovation that kept Nomad’s white brick walls and original wood flooring but left the room feeling lighter. Im explained that the tables are spaced well apart, and while this is less efficient, he admitted, they wanted people to have room to breathe. The result is a lot of open air, anchored by a long communal table in the middle of the room. Sat in the corner is the turquoise wood-fired oven, a part of Nomad they could not lose.

Paolo’s, named after Jeremy Kratzer’s late grandfather Paul Macher, fittingly built its menu around the comforts of the home. Diners can reach for classics served family-style like chicken parmesan, lasagna and Roman-style clam pizza or Kratzer favorites like shrimp scampi, adapted from their home recipes. Those with a sweet tooth have been drawn to the lemon pie with toasted Italian meringue for dessert.

“There’s nothing on our menu that is so highbrow that I have to explain it. I do not have to explain what marinara is, or what a margherita pizza is. We wanted to make this place feel comfortable. If people don’t look for me or my servers in their full dining experience, we’ve done our job,” Im said.

The bar is almost in its own world. Im, who came to Paolo’s as the beverage director before transitioning into his current role, drew inspiration from Italian aperitivo and Amari culture to create what he calls “apertiki.” He highlighted the Coconut & Clarity and the Mango Negroni as fan favorites. The bar itself, stainless steel and bespoke, imported in from an Oslo company called “Behind Bars,” offers a place for customers to settle in for a drink.

Im is eager to welcome more of the community and has big dreams for what they will find inside.

“I want them to lose track of time. In the most perfect world, Paolo’s should feel like an oasis,” Im said. “Life can be very challenging. Things are expensive. The last thing I want is to create an experience that makes you conscious of how tough life has been outside of our doors.”

Im, only half-joking, honed in on this idea of an escape.

“If I could, I would love to turn this restaurant into a Faraday cage, just destroy cell phone reception and [force people to] fully disconnect.”

While Im raved about the food, when asked whether Paolo’s will become a Brunswick institution, he suspected it would come down to something larger than the menu. He paraphrased the quote by Maya Angelou, “I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”

“People don’t necessarily go [to restaurants] for the food strictly as much as they go because they loved how they felt in that space,” Im said. “It [is] transportation. And I don’t think it has to be expensive for it to be that.”

Grace Kinum ’28, who thought Paolo’s would soon become a date-night and family weekend classic, enjoyed its family-style setting.

“I got the spicy rigatoni [al forno], we got pizza and we started with the meatballs, which [were] really good,” Kinum said. “And the tiramisu was delicious.”

For Kinum, it also felt like home.

“I’m from New Jersey, so I could say confidently [Paolo’s is] very comparable to New Jersey Italian food,” Kinum said. “I don’t really know what New Jersey Italian entails, but it was really good. I need to go back.”

Paolo’s is open from Thursdays to Sundays in the Fort Andross Mill.