A month before this year’s Masters, Ben Crenshaw traveled to Augusta National. He and some friends played the course and enjoyed the fine cuisine from the kitchen as well as the enviable atmosphere for which the club is so famous. But one evening at the suggestion of the two-time Masters champion, the group ventured off campus for a meal. Their destination: a 75-year-old eatery at 590 Broad Street in downtown Augusta called Luigi’s.
Started in 1949 by Greek immigrant Nicholas Ballas, it specialized for several decades in Italian food, largely because it was almost impossible to find proper ingredients for the sort of fare “Papou Nick” had grown up eating and cooking on the Aegean island of Lesvos (which is also known as Lesbos). And most Americans in those days did not have much of a palate for plates such as moussaka and spanakopita.
That, however, did not stop Luigi’s from becoming an institution in Georgia’s second-largest city – and from developing a customer base that relished its baked lasagna, veal parmigiana and pizza. And the following became even greater as the restaurant added more Greek dishes to the menu, among them a baked half-chicken seasoned with olive oil, lemon juice and Hellenic herbs that today is its best-selling dish.
The eatery’s biggest fans also came to include a number of the professional golfers who traveled to Augusta to compete in the Masters or play practice rounds before the tournament. Such as Crenshaw. Fred Couples, Jordan Spieth, Lanny Wadkins, Sandy Lyle and Larry Mize, too. Also, Luigi’s list of celebrity clientele runs the gamut from Condi Rice to Elvis.
“I think that I first ate at Luigi’s the first year I played in the Masters, in 1972 when I was an amateur,” said Crenshaw, who won the green jacket in 1984 and 1995. “I have been going there ever since. There’s nothing fancy. Just really good food in a really good atmosphere. And the Ballas family is wonderful.”
These days, a member of the fourth generation of that clan, Penelope Ballas-Stewart, presides over the kitchen and dining room at Luigi’s, having taken over as proprietor two years ago from her father, Chuck Jr.
Born and raised in the Garden City, the 48-year-old mother of two remembers sharing family meals as a little girl at a table in the back of the restaurant with her parents and her two younger sisters, Bebe and Claudia, as well as various uncles, aunts and cousins.
“I was probably 13 when I started bussing tables,” Ballas-Stewart said. “A couple of years after that, I was waiting tables. By the time I went to college, at what was then known as Augusta State, I was a hostess and manager.
“Luigi’s the only place I have ever worked,” said Ballas-Stewart of the place that for many years counted as its neighbors a tattoo parlor on one side and a pool hall on the other. “And I have loved everything about it. Interacting with the customers. Cooking the food and then serving it. Tending bar, too.”
(The tattoo parlor shut down a decade or so ago, but the pool hall, which is called the Sports Center and known for its best-in-class hamburgers, is still in business.)
“I also like that my two kids work here as well as my sisters’ kids,” said Ballas-Stewart, who has been married for 25 years to Matt Stewart, a certified registered nurse anesthetist. “My oldest, Kalli, is a senior at Georgia, and she comes down every weekend to help out. And my son, Matti, short for Matthew, is a high school senior and takes a few shifts every week as well. It’s great to have so many from the fifth generation involved.”
Ballas-Stewart says that Papou Nick moved to Augusta in the late 1940s. “He got into catering and then started his own restaurant,” she said. “He called it Luigi’s as a sort of thanks to a man named Louis who introduced him to the food business and helped him go out on his own.”
Greek food was non-existent in the area at the time, and Italian cuisine only incrementally easier to find. “We were the first restaurant in Augusta ever to serve pizza,” Ballas-Stewart said. “If you wanted Greek food, you had to bring it in from the outside. When my great-grandmother on my mother’s side came down to visit from Massachusetts, where many of my relatives lived in those days, she packed a cooked leg of lamb in her suitcase. You could not find lamb anywhere here.”
According to Ballas-Stewart, Papou Nick’s health started to fail in 1954, so his son Chuck and daughter-in-law Penny, after whom Ballas-Stewart was named, moved south from the Boston area with their three children. Six years later, the couple started running Luigi’s after Papou Nick perished in a car accident.
Ballas-Stewart remembers her grandfather Chuck not only as a good restaurateur but also as someone who loved golf.
“It was pretty easy to get Masters badges back then, and my grandfather bought a slew of tickets each year and handed them out to friends, family and customers,” Ballas-Stewart said.
Of course, she adds, he would keep some for himself and take in as much of the tournament as possible during what invariably was the busiest week of the year.
Chuck Sr. retired in 1988, at which point Ballas-Stewart’s parents, Chuck Jr. and Debi, took over.
“My dad loved to cook,” Ballas-Stewart said. “He made the pizza dough from scratch as well as the meatballs and the marinara sauce. And he cut all the steaks. We worked side-by-side for many years, and he taught me how to do all those things.
“I also learned from my mom, watching her cook at home. And my grandmother Penny taught me how to make moussaka. She always made it for the restaurant, but after she passed away in 2020, I had to take that task on myself.”
“Augusta National was the first golf course I ever stepped on, and for many years the only one I had ever been to. I like to go out with my husband. We love the 13th hole. We’ll get some sandwiches and beers and park ourselves at the dogleg and take it all in.” — Penelope Ballas-Stewart
In 2021, Ballas-Stewart’s mother died at age 68.
“About a year later, my dad decided to step away from the business,” Ballas-Stewart said. “He still pops in every now and then, to fix himself something to eat and hang around for a bit.”
Not surprisingly, Ballas-Stewart loves the Masters and always finds ways to get out to the course during the tournament.
“I have been going since I was a child,” she said. “Augusta National was the first golf course I ever stepped on, and for many years the only one I had ever been to. I like to go out with my husband. We love the 13th hole. We’ll get some sandwiches and beers and park ourselves at the dogleg and take it all in.”
Ask Ballas-Stewart about her most memorable Masters, and she instantly says 1995. “I had gone to the course with a friend,” Ballas-Stewart said. “She was pulling for Davis Love III, and I, of course, was pulling for Ben. He is my favorite.
“The other one I remember most was Tiger’s first win, in 1997,” he said. “My parents used to talk about how you could always figure out where Jack Nicklaus was on the golf course by the roars that seemed to follow him. With Tiger that Sunday all those years ago, it was much the same way.”
What also will be the same at this year’s Masters is a full house at Luigi’s every night during tournament week (except for the final day of play on Sunday, when it will be closed), with Ballas-Stewart doing what five generations of her family have been doing since 1949. And that is making sure everyone dining there is well fed and well taken care of.
“We have two or three couples staying with us in Augusta during the Masters,” Crenshaw said. “And we will certainly carve out time one evening to go to Luigi’s.”
As is the case with so many other customers, he keeps coming back.