A POPULAR Dumbarton pizza joint has picked up a prestigious national business award.

Bangin Pizza' has been named a winner in the Lloyds Bank Small Business of 2021 awards, selected in recognition of its success during the pandemic and its contributions towards the local community. 

Owners Stephen Kirkwood and Steven Galloni have been producing authentic Italian pizzas since December 2020.

It is also the official sponsor of Dumbarton FC, using its community links to offer training in pizza-making for local young people.

Speaking about the award, Stephen told the Reporter: "We're pretty blown away to be honest.

"We’ve only been open seven months, it's a part of a whirlwind of crazy madness in a positive way.

"We want to nail what we can, make sure we’re ironing out any issues, work super hard on the quality and making sure that doesn’t drop.

"We're training staff on our values and recipes/ There’s potential to take what we’re doing to other places."

As part of the award win, Stephen has won a mentoring session with Kanya King, founder of the MOBO Awards. 

Kanya will provide insight and support to help Bangin’ Pizza grow the business in the coming years and continue supporting its local community.

And the business award is not the only prize that the restaurant is in line for, with Bangin’ Pizza nominated by the Scottish Italian Awards in the Best Pizza category.

The winner will be announced at a charity gala event at the end of November, after the votes received on scottishitalianawards.co.uk/vote-2021 are tallied.

The company caused a stir in the area after complaints about an Italian flag painted over one of the store's shutters.

But the colourful artwork attracted widespread support from local residents.