A Quick Q&A with Adam Sweet, owner of Problem Child in Little Rock, Arkansas
PIZZA CONCEPT:
A little rock-and-roll pizza shop with a killer cocktail menu and wine list – the best cheeseburger in town, too. It’s my answer to everything I grew up with in that same scene where I first started, when I was 17 years old, and then later doing the Neapolitan thing – a bit more upscale and fancy, pinky-up situation – and smashing it all together.
PIZZA STYLE:
We do New York style, for lack of a better term. Or you can go with “Neo-Neapolitan-ish.” You can pick it up and fold it. We push everybody toward a cheese or pepperoni slice out of the gate. It’s an electric oven, 14- or 18-inch sized pizzas.
We get a little bit weird with ingredients sometimes – nothing too crazy because we want to be a super approachable neighborhood spot. We don’t want anybody to come in and feel intimidated or feel like they’re out of place. But also, we want to have the fun stuff, too.
WHEN IT COMES TO “WEIRD” INGREDIENTS, DO YOU KEEP THOSE ON THE SPECIALS MENU?
The specials menu leans toward what our local farmers and makers can get us. I like to let them be the spotlight for the specials board. Putting a shine on somebody else in the community is great for us, too, because we’re scratching each other’s back and promoting from two different angles.
HOW DID YOU FIND THE LOCAL VENDORS YOU PARTNER WITH?
I’m born and raised in Arkansas. When we moved back to town a little over a year ago, I put a call out to all my chef and restaurant friends: Give me all your farmers. It’s a rural state, lots of farms, but not everyone is doing what you want to do. So that’s relying on friends and word of mouth.
HOW HAS BUSINESS GONE SINCE YOU OPENED IN MARCH?
Prior to opening, I was doing every single pop-up that I possibly could, trying to put our name out there. I would do a handful of spotlight events at the Whitewater Tavern, where I would take over their kitchen and put our trials on the menu. That way, when we opened, there was a literal line out the door waiting for us to open.
I NOTICED YOU HAVE A DRIVE-UP WINDOW …
It’s actually a walk-up window. We inherited an old barbecue building, and we lucked out. When it’s Friday night, and everybody’s coming in for their carry-out pizza, it gets overcrowded and that’s bad for everybody. We wanted to make sure we had a spot where people can hit the window and get right back out without interfering with people waiting for their tables.
All the third-party delivery systems don’t even come inside the restaurant now. They just show their phone to the person at the window, hand it off, and off they go.
HOW DID YOU COME UP WITH THE FUN TROPICAL DRINKS ON THE MENU?
That is all the bartenders. I’m no bartender, but there are no rules. The bottom line is: Is it delicious? Even better, can we highlight certain local products?
Arkansas in the summer has really worked over our frozen drink machine. We inherited that, too, from the barbecue spot. We are refilling it a few times per shift just to keep it flowing.
WHAT MADE DECIDE TO OFFER A HAMBURGER?
For me, it was totally selfish. I don’t want to eat pizza every single day, so I wanted to have the best cheeseburger I possibly can. It’s not over complicated. It’s a good double smash burger, great sauce. We are probably selling 50-something burgers a day, which is a lot for a pizza shop. It’s not really what we’re here for, but we move through them.
Problem Child on the Web
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