Former Stella site to become new restaurant

Plans are under way for a new beer and pizza joint at the site of the former Stella Boutique on Perkins Road, which closed earlier this year. The restaurant will be called Ice House Coal Fired Pizza and Pizzeria and, as its name implies, will feature a coal-fired oven with handmade pizzas and more than 40 brands of beer, according to New Orleans businessman Jack Rizzuto, who hopes to open the new establishment in 90-120 days. Before that can happen, Rizzuto must first renovate the 2,500-square-foot building, which is located in the popular Perkins Road overpass neighborhood. He also has to get permission from the Planning Commission to change the zoning at the site from C-1, or commercial, to CAB-1, which will allow him to serve alcohol on the premises. The Planning Commission is scheduled to take up the matter at its regular monthly meeting in April. “We think it’s a great location,” says Rizzuto, whose Ice House will be joining nearly a dozen other restaurants in a six-block strip. It will be Rizzuto’s first restaurant in Baton Rouge. He owns Jester Mardi Gras Daiquiris in the 200 block of Bourbon Street in New Orleans, as well as a second location in Destin, Fla., and says he’s also in the process of opening an Ice House Coal Fired Pizza restaurant on Magazine Street in New Orleans. —Stephanie Riegel