When Peggy’s opened in 2021, the fresh-faced sandwich shop quickly made friends with its winning blend of nostalgia, kitchen know-how (as you’d expect with a former Andrew McConnell alum driving the cooking) and whip-smart branding. Harriet Roxburgh and Harry Peasnell, the owners of Peggy’s, will be looking to build on these promising foundations when they open venue number two later this year.

The couple are counting down to the September opening of Lola’s, a casual 60-seat pizzeria in the same heritage-listed Imperial Chambers building that houses Peggy’s. While this new project reflects where things are at for family Roxburgh-Peasnell (fun fact: just as Peggy’s was named after their first daughter, the couple have named the follow-up after their second daughter), the plan is to make Lola’s a place where everyone feels welcome.

“It could be a date-night spot, but it should also be somewhere that I should feel comfortable to go down at five o’clock with my partner and my kids for a quick pizza and a beer and be in and out in an hour,” says Peasnell, a Melbourne-raised chef who now calls Perth home.

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Following the example set by Peggy’s, the menu will rely heavily on familiar flavours as well as a healthy shake of Australiana. In Peasnell’s mind, this means a pizza that ticks the boxes for chef-baker flourishes – long ferments, a mix of flours – while also being faithful to the old-school pizzas he grew up eating as a kid in inner-city Melbourne. Doing the bulk of the heavy lifting in the kitchen will be a three-deck, stone-based electric Pizzamaster oven.

“We’re thinking the sort of pizza that, if there’s a footy club function, you can order 10 of them and they’ll travel and you can eat them over an hour,” says Peasnell, who describes the pizza as a hybrid of Australian and New York styles. It’ll also be the sort of pizza that rewards eaters the following morning, too. “We want it to be a pizza that’s really structural and can stand up to the toppings. There’ll be that little bit of greasiness, but you won’t feel like you’ve eaten a brick by the end of it.”

In addition to the pizza offering (the dozen or so toppings will feature eight tomato-based pies and four bianco options), the kitchen will also serve other pizza-adjacent items including smoked meatballs and panzanella salads. Drew Dawson, Peasnell’s right-hand man between both restaurants and the cook behind the Off Licence pop-ups, will draw heavily on his British-Italian upbringing for the Lola’s menu.

The clipped drinks list will reinforce the casual spirit of Lola’s with tap beers, a few cans and a selection of easy-going “pizza wines”. In another instance of east coming together with west, architect Peter Cole - the man behind the look of Melbourne hotspots Hope St Radio and Russian-Georgian-themed wine bar Gray & Gray - has also signed on to help design the look of the space.

Lola’s (41 Market Street, Fremantle) is slated to open in September.