It’s the day northeast Johnson County soft pretzel lovers have been waiting for.
The metro area’s first Pretzel Boy’s location will hold its grand opening this Saturday, April 22.
Owner Dan Wikiera got his start in the food business working at Waldo Pizza, but wanted to find a concept not present in the Kansas City market that he could use to branch out on his own. He found it in a made-from-scratch soft pretzel joint in St. Louis. After stumbling across the shop, he worked out a deal with the St. Louis owners to open a Pretzel Boy’s location in Overland Park.
Wikiera took over the space at 9559 Nall Avenue, in the same strip as Sawa Sushi and Hibachi and Papa Murphy’s Pizza near 95th Street and Nall, in January, and has been overseeing the renovations since. This week, he and his staff have been doing their first official production, making sure everything’s ready for a smooth opening to the public Saturday.
Pretzel Boy’s will open its doors at 7 a.m. Saturday — and to mark the occasion, they’ll be giving out a free pretzel to every customer who comes in.
“Our big deal is that everything is made fresh, made from scratch,” he said. “All our pretzels are hand twisted.”
In addition to the traditional twisted pretzels, Pretzel Boy’s features pretzel nuggets and custom shapes. (The pretzel cooks were busy putting together a Royals logo as well as an ice skate earlier this week). Customers can also get made from scratch cheese dips for their pretzels, including cheddar, American and jalapeno.
Pretzel Boy’s also has pretzel wrapped sausages.
“We get the sausages from Fritz’s down at 103rd,” Wikiera said. “They do their own sausages in house, and then we wrap our fresh pretzel dough around them.”
Pretzel Boy’s will be open 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Saturday for the grand opening. Normal hours will be 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday; 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Tuesday through Friday; 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. Saturday; and 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sunday.
