Chip Myles serves his community one slice at a time

Words by Paige Townley
Photos by Paul Mehaffey

They say that a baby changes everything, and for Chip and Bridget Myles, those words certainly ring true. For this couple in particular, it sparked a culinary adventure neither of them could have predicted.

It all started when Bridget was pregnant with their first child, Gideon, and her specific food craving. “All she wanted to do was eat pizza,” Chip said. “We were eating it practically every night. I told her that before we have our second child, we were going to have to open our own pizza place because I knew I could make pizza better than what we were getting.”

Chip’s proposal wasn’t an exaggeration. He owned and operated the local Dairy Queen in their hometown of Bowling Green, Ohio, so he was already well acquainted with the food industry. “And after starting a family, I soon realized we needed another source of income to support us, so it moved us right along in opening up the pizza pub,” Chip said.

To start the pizza pub, Chip didn’t have to look far. Right across the tracks from the Dairy Queen sat a pizza shop, and its owner needed to sell because of financial difficulties. Chip bought out the business and never looked back. They renamed the business Myles’ Pizza Pub, completely remodeled the space, and began experimenting with recipes. “We wanted something that we would enjoy and for everything to be very flavorful,” Chip says. “We didn’t want it to be a generic pizza place. We wanted customers to easily tell the difference between us and everybody else.”

The family officially opened the door of Myles’ Pizza Pub in April of 1977. They started simple—the menu consisted mainly of just pizzas with a few salad and sub options—but after just a short period of time, the business boomed. “After six months, the place just went off the deep end,” Chip said. “I had to bring in a whole new crew. We had people standing outside constantly waiting to get in.”

For the next 40 years, those crowds never stopped.

Being located in a college town certainly helped. “Bowling Green State University adopted us and made it their pizza,” Chip said. But the overwhelming difference that drew patrons year after year was the secret sauce—the pub’s secret pizza sauce, to be exact. “It just took on a life of its own,” said Chip. “The folks that came in liked it. As I always say, you’re either going to love it or you’ll probably never come back because it’s distinctive.”

The pizza sauce was developed by the family, and it’s one that takes multiple days to prepare. Chip made the sauce from scratch each week to ensure it consistently maintained the unique flavor. “I’d practically stay up all night working with it, adding the flavors, and getting it where I wanted it,” Chip said. “Then I’d go home for a few hours, get some sleep, and go right back to work.”

Besides serving up quality pizzas over those decades, Chip worked to support his community. There was rarely a school function or 4-H event that didn’t feature the pub’s pizza or ice cream from Dairy Queen, which the family still ran as well. “My father always taught me that a community is only as good as the people that are in it, so I felt that it was part of my responsibility in the community to do as much as we could do to make it a place you’d want to live,” Chip explained. “I’d like to think we did that to help make Bowling Green a better place.”

Chip closed Myles’ Pizza Pub on October 2, 2016, when the couple moved to Greenville, South Carolina. The closure was obviously a massive loss to its fans in Bowling Green—there were lines out the door the week it was closing, with so many attempting to get one last pizza that the pub had to significantly reduce its menu and limit orders just to be able to feed them all. But the community’s love of the pizza remained. So much, in fact, that when Chip and Bridget, along with daughter Meredith, made the decision to reopen the shop in their newly adopted town three years later, familiar faces from home immediately began popping up. “We opened up in Greenville very quietly—we didn’t make a big announcement or anything—and when we opened the very first day, our entire dining room was full of people from Ohio,” Chip shared. “We continue to have diners from Ohio on a daily basis—some days just more than others.”

Now five years in, the new South Carolina location continues to welcome old friends from Bowling Green. “I’m amazed at how many will be in our dining room on any given night, even during the week,” Chip said. “On Saturdays, we’ll have cars in the lot with people waiting to come in, and most are from up north. It’s a very good feeling that they are still there for us. They want to be here for us.”

Greenville locals have gotten on board as well. Though the menu did receive a refresh for its new audience—Meredith removed some items that needed to go and added some fresh new ones—Bowling Green’s old favorites remain, and they have become favorites for the Palmetto State residents too, and Chip appreciates the ability to continue feeding his community. Now in his 70s, he has taken a small step back—Meredith handles more of the administration and front of house items—but Chip continues to lead the kitchen, ensuring that everything continues to be made from scratch in his kitchen. He also continues to serve as keeper of the secret sauce, a role he doesn’t plan on giving up anytime soon. “I love what I do,” Chip said. “I jokingly tell people that I don’t wish my job on anybody, but I literally can’t wait to get up in the morning and come to work. It’s a good feeling that I can walk in and be smiling ear to ear. I consider myself extremely lucky.”