Bird Pizzeria Owners Nkem and Kerrel Thompson Dish on Maintaining Charlotte’s pizza hot spot
Bird Pizzeria has garnered attention as not only a hot pizza spot in Charlotte, North Carolina, it has also grabbed national and international attention from The New York Times, Top 50 Pizza, Bon Appétit and Southern Living. Explore how they’ve created and managed a three-month reservation wait.
Your business has evolved from a pop-up to a popular neighborhood spot. Was it a slow burn or an overnight success?
Nkem: We started at home, and Kerrel used to post on Instagram all the time. During COVID, we started sharing pizza with friends from a distance. When we launched as a pop-up, people were ready to gather in small groups again, so we immediately met our capacity. From the beginning, whatever our capacity was, we were always met with a response of “this isn’t enough,” which was a rewarding feeling.
As we grew, we found our location. It was just us, with no staff. Most of the time, you get a space and hope people come. For us, it was almost like, “Don’t all come at once!” As we’ve grown, adding more staff, more storage, and opening a dining room, the demand has grown with us. Just as we were ready to open our dining room, we were featured in The New York Times. So, as we’ve raised our ceiling, more people have found out about us. We’ve always been up against never having enough, even as our capacity has grown.
When did you start using pre-orders, and how has that helped your operations?
Nkem: We’ve done pre-orders since the beginning. When we opened our window, we discovered the functionality in our Square system. We understood it as a pre-order system, and it just made sense to encourage people to order ahead. We’re on a residential street with no foot traffic; people were traveling specifically to us. We knew that just opening the window wouldn’t bring in customers, so pre-orders helped ensure we had business.
Kerrel: It was amazing. Before we even turned the oven on, we would look at our point-of-sale system and see all these orders already accounted for. That grew to become about 60% of our business, and it’s still a very high percentage. Perfecting this model early on was key.
You have a unique dining setup and a three-month reservation waitlist. Can you tell us about that?
Nkem: We have a small dining room that seats under 40 people. Again, because of our location, we had to think about how to accommodate people traveling from 30 minutes away or more. We wanted to make sure they didn’t waste their trip. We wrestled with whether to do reservations or walk-ins and decided to make the majority of our seats available by reservation. This way, we can accommodate those who plan ahead while still saving some space for walk-ins. We’re constrained by our square footage, so this helps us manage the demand.
Kerrel: We really wanted to create that romantic restaurant experience. We have a full beverage and wine program, and our kitchen is exposed so you can see the production. The small size has a lot to do with the waitlist, but I also think the excitement around what we’re doing is a big factor. It’s a cool little neighborhood spot. We take time and interest in curating an experience for our guests, and people want to come back.
Pizza Concept:
Kerrel: Our pizza concept is a play on the romance of pizza at its highest level, but it’s also meant to be extremely accessible and grounded. It started with a window, which helped us communicate a quick-service, community-facing feel. We got to connect with people daily in a way that we could later amplify through a dining room experience. It’s a hybrid between quick service and a very elegant, full-service experience.
Pizza Style:
Kerrel: It’s a combination of things. It has an East Coast, New York-style structure, but there’s an element of proportion and flavor that references nostalgia from my experiences in Cleveland. So it has a Midwestern flavor flare. Visually, it has the distinct characteristics you’d see in an artisanal or traditional New York-style pizza. I’m big on beauty, and I wanted to create something beautiful. You often see beauty in Neapolitan or deep-dish styles, and we wanted to reference that.
Visit Bird Pizzeria at birdpizzeria.com/ and on Instagram @ birdpizzeria.
