Pie Five Pizza has ceased operation in Aggieville. Opened in 2016, Pie Five brought a unique fast-casual model where guests could customize handcrafted pizzas in under 5 minutes. The Manhattan location was a franchised by Dave Gobel, a former Applebees CEO. Gobel had opened 10+ Pie Five locations throughout Kansas and Missouri before the closure of the Manhattan location.
According to the Kansas City Business Journal, in March of 2019, the Westport Pie Five location announced it’s closure citing, “ongoing challenges with sales volume and foot traffic.” As a shopping and entertainment district, Westport shares many similarities with Aggieville; busy nights and weekends with countless guests frequenting full-service bars and restaurants.
It would seem as though Aggieville is proving a tough business environment for fast-casual restaurants in general. Over the last few years, Aggieville has experienced closings of Pie Five, Fuzzy’s Taco Shop, Subway, Pita Pit, and PepperJax, all of which shared a similar fast-casual model.
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Maybe the city should get serious about improving parking
🙁 Glad I had a perfect pizza there last week. Sad there will be no more.
Pizza was not that great. No loss in my opinion.
Mike- Is a lack of parking really the reason these businesses are failing? I live in Manhattan and go to Aggieville about once a week, in the evenings or occasional weekend day. Some nights are a bit difficult and require me to circle the block a second time but never more than that. I think the business owners need to do more, not the taxpayers. People stand in line to sit in the always over crowded So Long Saloon, and Taco Lucha. Why are they not failing? Its a well managed establishment.
I think it is parking. Especially with the fast casual. These are designed to be an in and out experience. Idk how many times Ives drove by chipotle or goodcents ,among others, just because if I can’t park quickly, I would rather just do drive thru or get delivery. So long or Taco lunch is high quality food that I KNOW I’m going to have to wait for.