The village of Panama welcomed the opening of the new pizza shop in the village, Rock Hill Pizza, during their March meeting. P-J photo by Sara Holthouse

PANAMA — Following the official opening of Rock Hill Pizza in mid-February, the village of Panama is welcoming the new pizza shop to the village.

At the village board’s March meeting, Mayor William Schneider said the shop is a welcome addition to the village.

“As I’m sure everyone is aware of, over the course of the month the pizza shop is now officially inspected and open and doing business,” Schneider said. “The village board would like to welcome them and hope that folks in the surrounding area take advantage of what they have to offer.”

Schneider said he himself has had their food twice already and it has been very good. Rock Hill Pizza is owned and operated by Melissa Ecker and offers a variety of both regular and specialty pizzas, wings, salads and other fried foods and appetizers. Rock Hill Pizza is located at 8 West Main Street and is open from 3 p.m. to 10 p.m. Monday through Saturday.

Schneider said the village now has two eating places again with the opening of the shop, including Panama Diner.

“Now we have two eating establishments in Panama and I think it’s great, a lot more people coming into town,” Schneider said.

Village Trustee Todd Eddy said he had heard the shop plans to do a fish fry at some point because of the Panama Diner doing pizza and wings on Fridays. Schneider said right now Rock Hill Pizza has a rollout menu with plans to add more items as they go.

“They wanted to get the doors open and they didn’t want to be competition, they wanted to be complimentary,” Schneider said.