WILMINGTON — Wilmington couple Jada O’Malley and Michael Baker want to celebrate the opening of their new Your Pie pizza location the best way they know how: a whole lot of free pizza.
O’Malley and Baker hope to open their Your Pie location later this month on Oleander Drive. The franchise was started in 2008,in Athens, Georgia, and quickly spread throughout the southeast.
O’Malley said she’d dreamed of having her own business for years, and when she and Baker dined at one, they fell in love with the restaurant.
“People sometimes say, ‘yeah, but it’s a franchise,'” Baker said. “But this is really good pizza. It’s the freshest pizza I’ve ever had. If it wasn’t great, we wouldn’t have put so much of ourselves into it.”
The two even went to pizza dough boot camp. After several hours, O’Malley said she had the basics down; Baker, meanwhile, took to the craft much more deeply.
“By the end of that day, I was working two pieces at a time stacking them on top of each other,” Baker said with a laugh. “You know, that next level pizza dough skill.”
The team sank their savings – and a lot of sweat equity – into the new franchise; they’ve been working on getting their restaurant open since October of 2016. Now that opening day is within sight, O’Malley said she can’t wait to open the doors.
“Firing up that pizza oven is going to feel really good,” O’Malley said. “Seeing families eating here is going to feel really good.”
What’s in store
At Your Pie, customers built their own pizza on a line, featuring three crusts – gluten free, whole wheat and regular – as well as several cheeses and sauces – as many as nine, according to O’Malley. There’s also unlimited toppings.
The personal-sized pizzas run about $8. Kids pizzas are smaller, but come with a free gelato.
O’Malley and Baker plan to run weekly specials, including featured toppings, and drink specials from their planned list of craft beer and wine, including “pint night and wine Wednesday,” O’Malley said.
“We also want to make sure people feel this is a really family-friendly place,” O’Malley added. “Not just the gelato for the kids, but we’ll also do a kids-eat-free-night kind of thing.”
What says grand opening more than free pizza? Free pizza for a year
To get ready for their grand opening, O’Malley and Baker will bring in staff to practice cooking pizzas — a lot of pizzas, nearly 1200, according to O’Malley. But don’t worry, the pizzas won’t go to waste. O’Malley and Baker will open their doors to the public to sample these test pizzas in exchange for a small donation to the Cape Fear Literary Council.
“There’s going to be so much more pizza than the staff could eat, and the idea of it ending up in the trash was just wrong,” Baker said.
The charity pizza giveaway is a pretty good deal, O’Malley said, but there’s another offer on the table too – free pizza, for a year, for five people.
“We’re giving away free pizza. For a year. And we’ve almost had trouble getting the word out, because, I think, maybe people don’t believe it — free pizza, it’s too good to be true. But it is absolutely true,” O’Malley said.
For more information on the pre-Grand Opening charity pizza feast and the free-pizza-for-a-year prizes, check out Your Pie’s Facebook page. Your Pie is located at 4403 Oleander Drive, and is accessible from both Oleander and S. Kerr Avenue.
On the map: Your Pie Wilmington
[mappress mapid=”1124″]
Send comments and tips to Benjamin Schachtman at ben@localvoicemedia.com, @pcdben on Twitter, and (910) 538-2001.
