There's Greek, Chinese, monstrous hot dogs, and now Italian on Main Street in Wareham, as Fat Paulie's opens this week.

"We felt there's not a lot of food options around Main Street for the number of businesses and residences that are here, and we wanted to be in a town that gets a lot of seasonal customers but also has a year-round population on which to base the business," Paul Bevacqua, Fat Paulie himself, said.   (By the way, Bevacqua said he last weighed himself at 320 pounds, but he's also easily six-feet-four inches.)

Although named after Bevacqua, the restaurant is actually run by his sister-in-law Valerie Ternullo, who worked with Bevacqua in his prior restaurants in Mashpee and downtown Plymouth.

"We'd really like to see this restaurant become a staple here in Wareham," said Ternullo, who also said that she was excited to participate in the number of downtown festivals throughout the year.

Tobey Hospital was also a major draw.  Bevacqua's previous restaurants have been successful with catering to Jordan Hospital, and he hoped that their proximity to Tobey would attract hospital workers and visitors.

Bevacqua said he was aware that the location, which most recently hosted Perry's Place, has seen restaurants come and go.  But he said that they had found a similar, high-turnover location in Plymouth and made the restaurant a success.  He also found the other restaurants in the area - Minerva's, Piper Beau's, Frankenstein's, Woh-Lun - to be attractive.

"I've always found if you're by yourself [as a restaurant], it's tougher.  But if everyone works together and begin to draw people downtown, everyone benefits."

And he has utmost confidence in his food.

"This is a 'greatest-hits menu,'" he said.  "We took all the best aspects of our other restaurants and combined them here."

But it's the subtle differences that he thinks will win over customers: the homemade sauces and meatballs, Italian subs with prosciutto in them, and homemade pizza dough that is "stretched to order," and the Paulie's Panini.

"Once a customer's tried our food, we usually see their faces again."