There's pizza happening in Garland at The MillHouse Pizzeria and Stage, a restaurant and venue serving food, beer, and wine along with live music, across the Square in Garland's Downtown Historic District.

The restaurant opened in a vintage space at 532 Main St. built in 1906. Waymarking.com offers a cool summary describing its "Spanish Colonial style architectural features with a buff brick façade, parapet urns at the ends of each bay, and multi-colored Spanish clay tile roofing in a false application against the parapet wall."

Millhouse is from Chris Ewing, who has strong ties to Garland. He was born and raised there, and his mother used to work for city in the '70s. He previously worked at a corporate job in the construction industry but yearned for a change. Aided and abetted by the support of his parents, now deceased, as well as his siblings, he pursued the path of pizza.

"We're doing New York-style thin crust where the bottom has a crunch and the top has soft dough," he says. "I do like crafted pizza, but sometimes you just want to order a double pepperoni with breakfast bacon."

Their selection is mostly traditional, with a meat-topped carnivore, a Hawaiian with pineapple and Canadian bacon, and a veggie with pretty standard items like onion, bell pepper, mushroom, and olive.

Their only deviation is the trio of pizzas topped with chicken, including buffalo chicken, pesto, and chicken-bacon-ranch.

Appetizers include fried ravioli and fried cheese curds served with marinara or ranch. They've recently tested some homey pasta dishes and soups they'll add for the fall.

There are also wings, in traditional or boneless, with the usual complement of sauces ranging from buffalo to teriyaki to orange sriracha.

"One of our first cooks was a wing guy," Ewing says. "He had a deep history and wanted to bring wings. I didn't think about wings, this is a pizzeria, but we gave it a shot and our customers like having them."

A stage in their "entertainment room" room in the back features a state-of-the-art sound system where they host live music. There's also karaoke and Cowboys games once the season starts.

For drinks, he settled on beer and wine. "I'm an '80s guy, I love wine coolers and spritzers; I wanted to be that place where people go if you want a homemade wine cooler," he says. Or pretty much whatever the neighborhood desires.