Nearly a decade ago, 26-year old Jelisa Byl (then Jelisa Guy) bought Jersey Boys Pizzeria from Russ and Kim Sikorsky, taking the helm of the beloved Whitefish pizza shop. Though new to the world of pizza, Byl was born and raised in the Flathead Valley and had an interest in the people-centric aspects of the food service industry. Byl made an offer, the Sikorskys handed over the keys, and Byl began a years-long journey of flipping pies, nurturing a small business and navigating an ever-changing Whitefish.
This fall, Byl and her husband and co-owner, Pete Byl, led Jersey Boys through its biggest transition yet, moving out of its longtime location and into a new building in south Whitefish.
Jersey Boys opened the doors to its new location — 6155 Highway 93 South, Whitefish — last month, ushering in a new era for the pizzeria. The restaurant, formerly located in downtown Whitefish, is now in the old site of the Orient Express Restaurant, which closed its doors in 2023.
While the new Jersey Boys has retained the same warm atmosphere and homemade slices its customers have come to love, its new location is bigger and brighter, offering more space for a sit-down dining room, arcade games, increased parking and kitchen space. The restaurant has an outdoor patio with picnic tables and a bar area, which serves wine and beer on tap and by the bottle and can.
Both Byl and manager Becky Ojennes said the new space has reshaped customers’ dining experiences, allowing Jersey Boys to become a welcoming watering hole rather than just a spot for takeout.
“It’s really fun to have a dining room again and a space for people to actually come hang out,” Ojennes, who has worked at Jersey Boys for 11 years, said.
Ojennes said there has been “overwhelming support” from the community, and that locals who avoided the downtown Whitefish location during peak tourist season are coming out of the woodworks to dine at the new, south-of-town spot.
“There were definitely seasons where we didn’t see certain people, just because downtown gets hectic and they don’t come down there as much,” she said. “It’s been nice seeing them consistently coming in.”
Byl said she “could feel that there was going to be a transition before it was actually verbalized to us” at the old location, and she began looking for a new space two years ago.
Jersey Boys’ old location, 550 E. 1st St., was purchased in September by an LLC that is registered to both the Whitefish building and an address in Oceanside, Calif., according to property records.
In May, Byl found the Orient Express space. The building is owned by Dan Elder, and she said Elder and Kendal Slaybaugh worked day in, day out to revamp the space for Jersey Boys.
While Byl said she “lost an incredible amount of sleep” worrying about the loss of the foot traffic Jersey Boys’ downtown location once afforded to the business, her worries couldn’t have been “further from the truth of what is actually happening.”
During the pizzeria’s soft opening last month, eager customers flooded in, turning the restaurant “into a madhouse,” Byl said. On opening day, Jersey Boys’ staff had to stop answering the phones for the first time in 11 years due to an overwhelming demand for pizza. In the first two weeks of being open, Jersey Boys counted 2,610 quarters fed into its brand new arcade games.
“We turned the ‘open’ sign on and people just came flooding in. It was incredible,” Byl said.
Though adapting to a new kitchen has been difficult, Ojennes, Jersey Boys’s manager, said the restaurant crew is “really great about taking on a challenge and figuring out the solution.”
“Every day it’s getting better, and we’re getting that flow figured out,” Ojennes said.
Byl said it’s been a difficult chapter for the Jersey Boys family, which lost three members of its staff this year.
“It was really painful for us because we are so close,” she said.
Looking ahead, she hopes to “continue being a strong family” and “being as much of a staple in the community as we have been, just in a new location.”