Lauren Rivera 
A beloved pizza spot in Montclair has closed after serving the community for over 25 years, and a new chicken restaurant is taking its place. After making one final appearance at Upper Montclair’s Sidewalk Sale, DaVinci’s Brick Oven Pizza closed its doors at 223 Bellevue Avenue on Saturday, September 20th, 2025. Taking over the space will be the team behind Dan + Day’s, who are planning to open a farmhouse-style fried chicken restaurant in the spring of 2026. Signage is up in the space as of November 2025. Read on for what to know about DaVinci’s departure in Montclair and the new concept moving into the space from the Dan + Day’s team.
Photo Credit: Google Street View
DaVinci’s Closure
DaVinci’s Brick Oven Pizza served Montclair foodies with a variety of pies and other Italian classics for over 25 years. On September 10th, the business took to social media to share news of its closing:
View this post on Instagram
“After more than 25 wonderful years serving this community, DaVinci’s Brick Oven Pizza will be closing its doors.
We are so grateful for your loyalty, friendship, and support through the years. Although our business model is sound, we simply did not have the volume to sustain. Our hearts are full of gratitude for the memories we’ve shared.
— The DaVinci’s Family”
Read More: New Omakase Eatery Opening Soon in Montclair
On September 20th, the spot closed its storefront on Bellevue Avenue, and on its final day, DaVinci’s served around 20 pies to local patrons during Upper Montclair‘s annual sidewalk sale.
According to Montclair Local, owner Gary Conte will return to his former job as a senior data analytics manager at Wiley Publishing. Gary is also working to help his former employees find jobs at other local pizzerias.
What’s Coming to the Space?
The team behind Dan + Day’s, located at 598 Valley Road in Montclair, has plans to take over the Bellevue Avenue storefront. While the first locale currently operates as a burger + shake spot, its second business venture will be a fried chicken restaurant called Farmhouse Fried Chicken.
“It’ll be an elevated fried chicken concept which focuses on sandwiches but will also have ‘bone-in’ fried chicken as well,” owners Dan Campeas and Dayanna “Day” Ordóñez Brito shared with The Montclair Girl. “Think upscale Chick-fil-A with a little of KFC sprinkled in.”
As the name suggests, the space will feature a farmhouse theme. Dan and Day hope to give diners the sense of eating in a real barn or country home. The duo is hoping for an early April 2026 opening, as there’s still a lot of demo to be done on the space. As of November, signage was going up.
“Dayanna (Day) and I are so excited to open our second restaurant in Uptown,” Dan said. “I grew up in this part of town. We live uptown now, and we plan to raise our family in this area, so having two businesses here means a lot to us, and we are really excited for what we have planned here.”
See More: Tacobee’s Mexican Grill to Take Over Former Mighty Quinn’s Space in Hoboken
Follow @themontclairgirl on Instagram + TikTok for the latest Montclair updates, sign up for our weekly newsletter here that shares everything you missed each week, and check out our events calendar, which has over 100+ events weekly to peruse.
