The Mediterranean Founding Story

Tony & Sharon Testa

"Everything is homemade," including their breads, sauces, pizza dough, soups, and desserts, stated Tony Testa, Co-Founder of The Mediterranean Restaurant, located at 53 East Main Street in Wilmington. Tony and his wife, Sharon, along with their three children, have been running their restaurant since 2006, surviving both DHL closing in 2008 and the COVID-19 shutdowns in 2020.

Tony and Sharon first met each other in Daytona Beach, Florida. Sharon was a "Cincinnati girl" hitchhiking with a friend, and recalls seeing Tony on the beach “standing on his head, doing yoga, with his guitar laying in front of him,” and decided to introduce herself because he "looked interesting.” The two fell in love and got married six months later. They briefly moved to Connecticut, where Tony is from, and then later moved back to Ohio when Sharon became pregnant with their first son, Nick. To support their growing family, Tony had a winding career as a door-to-door salesman, pizza shop owner, and then owner of a traveling sports wholesale company.

Early in their marriage, Sharon had a life-changing experience when a friend of hers was "brutally murdered" by her boyfriend. This led Sharon and Tony to start exploring church and developing their Christian faith.

Tony and Sharon raised their family on a 10-acre property in Clinton County. Initially, they shopped in Xenia and went to church in Loveland, until Tony was called to serve on the grand jury, and “could not believe all this stuff that was happening in [Wilmington].” They started attending Dove Church in Wilmington and helping Allen Willoughby with Sugartree Ministries. “You can’t affect your community if you’re not part of your community," stated Sharon.

After purchasing the building that would later become The Mediterranean, Sharon stated, “My prayer was that we would never put business first, that family would always be first. It wouldn’t be about money, it would be about… people.” One week before opening, Tony lost his father, so the family donated all the restaurant's perishable food to Sugartree Ministries, flew to Connecticut for the funeral, and opened the restaurant the following week.

Almost 20 years later, Tony and Sharon still value family over business, closing the restaurant for ten days of the year to take a family vacation. Sharon stated, “As a mother... I got to work with my adult children for... over ten years, and that's hard, but it's also really cool… We've got our whole family, we saw them every day, and if I want to see them... I can stop right in the restaurant."

Listen to the Testa's full story on episode 76 of the Real Change Wilmington podcast.