SOUTHERN PINES, N.C. — Brookyln Pickle has officially headed south with its first location outside New York state. The eatery has been expanding outside its Syracuse home base this year — first with a restaurant in Utica and now a new location in Southern Pines, North Carolina. Located at 1788 Old Morganton Road, the newest […]
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SOUTHERN PINES, N.C. — Brookyln Pickle has officially headed south with its first location outside New York state.
The eatery has been expanding outside its Syracuse home base this year — first with a restaurant in Utica and now a new location in Southern Pines, North Carolina. Located at 1788 Old Morganton Road, the newest restaurant by co-owners Craig Kowadla and Steve Ziff opened on Nov. 14.
“It’s really a growing area with a tremendous amount of traffic,” Kowadla says of the new location. There is a Target opening nearby and lots of doctor’s offices in the area, bringing in lots of people, he notes.
The newest Brooklyn Pickle is 3,500 square feet, “which is small for us, but when you go into a new market, you don’t know how you’re going to do,” Kowadla explains. But as an added bonus, the restaurant offers a great deal of outdoor seating, which is harder to offer in New York. “We have as much outdoor seating as we do indoors,” Kowadla says, with 80 seats equally split between inside and out.
Work to get the new building ready included putting up walls, counters, and installing restaurant equipment. Kowadla had hoped to open earlier, but there were contractor issues that delayed the opening.
The town government of Southern Pines has been nothing but welcoming. “They were awesome to deal with,” he notes, adding the town helped him work through some occupancy certificate issues so he could get the restaurant open.
Visits to the area for vacations and golfing are what first brought the Southern Pines area to Kowadla’s attention. After spending time there, he thought it was the perfect place to bring Brooklyn Pickle’s giant sandwiches — and some other New York flavors.
“We’re bringing riggies and greens,” he says of the Central New York restaurant staples, chicken riggies and Utica greens.
The North Carolina restaurant follows in the Utica location’s footsteps as the second Brooklyn Pickle location to serve beer along with its sandwiches, soups, hot entrees, and desserts.
Taylor Baldwin, a veteran Brooklyn Pickle manager from Syracuse will run the North Carolina restaurant along with assistant managers Keri Henry, a former Syracuse Brooklyn Pickle manager, and local Tashina Jones.
“It really wasn’t a hard sell,” he says of convincing Baldwin and Henry to relocate south. The combination of experienced Brooklyn Pickle managers and a Southern Pines local is the best of both worlds, Kowadla adds.
The restaurant currently employs between 20 and 25 people, and Kowadla says they are still hiring.
After taking a little time to recover from the Southern Pines opening, Kowadla will set his sights on other markets he’d like to expand into including Watertown, Binghamton, Oswego, Rochester, and Albany.
“We’re looking forward to growing down here,” he adds. Kowadla is looking at possibilities for other North Carolina locations including Chapel Hill and Fayetteville.
Ken Sniper founded Brooklyn Pickle in 1975 on Burnet Avenue and added a West Side location two years later. The restaurant moved into its West Genesee Street location in 1984. The Clay Brooklyn Pickle opened in 2019.