Jason Sandford
Jason Sandford is a reporter, writer, blogger and photographer interested in all things Asheville.
The wood-fired oven at Farm & Sparrow Bakery.
A message from the Farm & Sparrow Facebook page yesterday:
I’m pleased to announce that All Souls Pizza is coming to Asheville this spring/summer in the location formerly known as the Silver Dollar and the Asheville Public.
This is a collaberation between myself and Chef Brendan Reusing (Lantern Restaurant- Chapel Hill). Fresh flour, traditional grains, fresh pasta, fresh polenta, house-cured meats, local cheeses.
We need to raise more funds to make this happen! We are pre-selling restaurant credit. Get yours now! email [email protected] or message me for details.
The “myself” the poster refers to is David Bauer, baker/owner of Farm & Sparrow Bakery, a wood-fired artisan bakery serving Asheville with breads available at Greenlife Grocery, Earth Fare, French Broad Food Co-op, Trout Lily Market, West Village Market and Amazing Savings.
Bauer is one of the local foodies mentioned in the recent Food & Wine article on Asheville’s growing world-class food scene. Brendan Reusing is currently the chef at Laurey’s.
Keep your eyes on The Asheville Public (TAP), which closes on Sunday…
UPDATE at 4 p.m. on 1/10. Here’s an email that David is sending out:
Hello friends,
As some of you know, I have been in the planning stages of opening a restaurant with my partner in crime Chef Brendan Reusing. It is called ALL SOULS PIZZA. Well, I am pleased to announce that this spring, we will be opening up at 175 Clingman Avenue (formerly the Asheville Pulic, formerly
the Silver Dollar) in the River Arts District.
All Souls Pizza will be serving wood-fired pizza, fresh pasta, polenta, and other seasonal dishes. Production will be entirely from scratch. Flour and polenta will be fresh-milled daily from regional grains. Produce will be sourced locally and seasonally whenever possible. Meats will be prepared in house. At the heart of the restaurant will be a custom wood-fired oven and smoker. In the morning, Farm and Sparrow will deliver fresh bread, pasta, polenta, and other mill goods to the restaurant. At the the restaurant, the hot coals from the previous night’s pizza bake will be waiting in the basin of the smoker. Brendan and his crew will begin smoking and roasting the days meats, cheeses, and vegetables for the evening service. The goal is to have a production with a synchronicity between the kitchen crew, the bakery, the oven, and the smoker.
You all know me.
What can I say about Brendan? Well, Brendan co-founded and was co-chef of the famed Lantern Restaurant in Chapel Hill. Lantern has a seasonally driven menu that sources the majority of its produce and meat from local farms in the Piedmont. Lantern was named one of Gourmet Magazines top 50 restaurants in the US in 2007. For the past few years, he has been the head chef at Laurey’s.
We are meeting with folks who are interested in being investors and/or lenders to finance this project and also offering “pre-sale gift certificates” in $250 increments to help us raise capital. They will be worth an additional 5-10% of their face value, depending on how much you purchase. An additional 5% is added for pre-purchases up to $500. A 10% addition is added for pre-purchases between $500-$1000.
We are also working with Slow Money NC, a non-profit whose mission is to support sustainable farms and local food businesses. They have been very helpful to lenders/investors and borrowers in dealing with the
technicalities of making direct, peer-to-peer, affordable loans and other community finance options.
Stay tuned for updates and please let us know if you are interested in supporting this exciting project.
Best, David
a wise man once told me, “you know how to make a small fortune in the restaurant business? start with a large fortune.” just sayin’.
24 hour reasonably affordable diner in the style of the old Sugar Beet would kill in that location.
True.
Enough with the pizza and beer already. Marco’s Pizzeria has been here for years and is still the only place I go. Some creativity in new businesses could do Asheville and its residents some good.
The more we talk about this the more we don’t like them coming in to a small neighborhood like this. It sets a bad precedent of competition among businesses in the normally collaborative district. They should rethink if this is smart and a good decision.
Do they know another pizza restaurant is coming two blocks away? Not a very big neighborhood.
Glad to hear that the spot will hopefully not stay vacant for long, but I wonder what kind of impact this will have on the White Duck folks’ plan for locally-inflected wood-fired pizza just down the road. Can two restaurants that similar both succeed in such a small area?
I too wish them luck. I honestly think that this spot is one of the most desirable locations in Asheville… IF they stay open late.
Some advice. Make a budget, then double it!
Thanks Annon. I should have also wished them well in my post because I sincerely do wish them the best. It just gets so old watching business owners or potential business owners make the same mistakes over and over. It seems very prevalent in the restaurant industry in particular. Go figure.
“We need to raise more funds to make this happen”, but yet its coming. Yet another undercapitalized business setting themselves up to fail.
I couldn’t have said it any better myself. Oh, Asheville. When will you learn?
I do wish them success, but it takes capital!!