Owner puts a fork in Fork & Pie, restaurant closes

Friday, November 1, 2013

photo Mike Robinson is seen in this file photo.
photo Fork and Pie Bar

Put a fork in it, Fork & Pie is done after just over a year in business.

Owner Mike Robinson acknowledged that he made mistakes with the business, which specialized in both savory and sweet pies. He was also affected by the perception that there's insufficient parking in the area, and from a lack of residential housing in the vicinity, he said.

But despite the setback, he's still working to promote the concept in other ways.

Robinson is meeting with grocery stores to stock his pie fillings and pies themselves by the end of November, and plans to do catering out of his current location while leasing the front to another tenant.

The restaurant had about 15 employees at one time. Robinson will keep several workers on to help with his ongoing ventures, which he calls a "pivot," a startup term to describe a business in the process of changing its model for making money. He's even considering other restaurant concepts, after taking a short break to spend time with his two-year-old.

"We may see if we want to do another concept here," he said. "Right now, we're going to continue to do all the catering and jarring out of here."

Pick up a copy of tomorrow's Times Free Press for more.