Licensed Pies brick and mortar coming quickly

We had been thrilled to see Certified Pies‘ Fb publish yesterday afternoon asserting that it will likely be opening a brick and mortar dine-in location at 9807 West Markham St. This places it in the identical buying middle — together with Fuller & Sons {Hardware}, Cheesecake on Level! and Andy’s Restaurant — the place it presently operates out of Arkitchen, a 5,000 square-foot shared business kitchen house providing caterers, bakers and meals truck house owners an incubator to develop their meals companies.

Licensed Pies is Little Rock’s only Black-owned pizzeria. It was opened by Kreg Stewart, his spouse Samantha Stewart and chef Harlem Wilson in October of 2020. By the spring of 2021, it was already creating a powerful popularity by way of word-of-mouth as a ghost kitchen idea with nice pizza and the must-try Licensed Fact wings.

Brian Chilson

Licensed will likely be shifting into the two,000 square-foot storefront the place Artwork Is In Muffins was situated. Kreg Stewart mentioned on a telephone name this morning that it labored out completely as a result of the purpose was to discover a location close to the neighborhood they’ve been serving for a bit greater than two years.

“I’m positively completely happy that we’re within the house that we’re in as a result of we actually have constructed this area of interest with the individuals on that aspect of city and the house that we’ve created already. So it actually did work out in our greatest favor and what we actually needed to do shifting ahead.”

Brian Chilson

A brick and mortar was all the time the purpose. Once we first interviewed Stewart within the spring of 2021 he mentioned they had been maxing out the house in ArKitchen and couldn’t deal with any extra enterprise than they had been doing.

“It’s powerful as a result of we need to do extra,” he mentioned. “It’s exhausting whenever you’re sharing an area with 25 different companies. … However we need to preserve this going so we are able to have our personal house and other people can come dine in, and I can really meet the individuals which were shopping for our meals as a substitute of simply being within the kitchen on a regular basis. It’s a troublesome state of affairs to be in proper now, however we’re pushing by way of.”

A number of months after interviewing Stewart within the spring of 2021, Licensed Pies received $5,000 in The Enterprise Middle’s Pint & Pitch contest, an entrepreneurial contest targeted on ladies, individuals of coloration and veterans whose Arkansas-based companies had been negatively affected by the pandemic or make lower than $100,000 in annual gross sales. Licensed Pies was additionally nominated for the 2021 rising minority enterprise of the 12 months by way of the Little Rock Chamber of Commerce.

Stewart mentioned the Artwork Is In Muffins house will have to be renovated and that Licensed could possibly be open this fall on the earliest, placing it on monitor to have fun its grand opening across the time of its three 12 months anniversary.

“I wouldn’t say it occurred in a single day,” Stewart mentioned. “It positively took a while, however I’m pleased with us and how briskly all the pieces is going on and rolling. We’re actually simply getting began.”

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