Roseboro growth continues with new pizza place

ROSEBORO — Pizza, the long gone delicacy since the closing of Vinny’s, is returning to Roseboro as the town prepares to welcome yet another new business to its growing ranks.

The new addition to that line-up will be known as Rosie’s Pizza and Pastry, a business unanimously approved by a town board vote last week when members OK’d a revolving loan application that helps green-light the new restaurant.

Rosie’s, a family-owned business, will be located inside 104 NE Railroad St. where owners and cousins Judy Stone and Buffy Brashear are remodeling the space into their dream restaurant, with plans to open soon.

“Right now we’re working on decorating the inside, so that’s pretty exciting, getting it painted and all of that,” Stone said. “We’re hoping to have a soft open by Aug. 5, and then we’ll have a grand opening sometime in the middle of the month.”

Stone isn’t the only one who’s overjoyed about pizza coming back to Roseboro. The town’s mayor, Alice Butler, offered her own enthusiasm for the latest business.

“Oh, I’m very excited for pizza’s return; it’s one thing that people have been missing,” she said. “That’s a food group that our citizens want, and I believe it’s going to be mainly takeout. They also have a history here as they actually have had a business here in town before and now they’re coming back, so we’re excited.”

That history Butler mentioned goes back over a decade for Stone who just recently moved back to Roseboro after selling her former pizza spot in Texas. Her cousin followed soon after and instantly fell in love with the town and knew she wanted to do something for Roseboro.

“I’ve been in the pizza business for like, 12 years,” Stone said. “I just moved back here from Texas, actually, after being gone for 12 years, and I just sold a pizza restaurant there called Lumber Yard Pizza which was actually in a lumber yard, it was really fun. Then Buffy just moved here but our family’s been here since 1968 though we’ve all gone and traveled all over the country to figure out where we need to be. Buffy moved from Utah and she’s so excited to be here; she came to Roseboro and just instantly fell in love.

“We want to do something for the town since she likes it so much, needless to say, we’re really excited bringing our place to town ,and let me tell you, we make really good pizza.”

With that 12 years experience, Stone said Rosie’s will bring speciality pizzas of every kind imaginable, promising a pizza to fit any customers fancy. Pizza won’t be the only item, either, as they’ll be offering sandwiches, and as their namesake suggests, they’ll have the unique presence of pastries as well.

”We’re gonna have pastries. I’m not sure who remembers, but my sister Rusty had a cakery, and she does amazing pastries,” Stone noted. “She’ll be helping us out with that so there will be pastries along with pizza. Me and my sister have been in the restaurant business since 1992 and we’ve had our share of all kinds of restaurants, and we can’t wait to open Rosie’s Pizza”

Finding a location offered nearly the same diversity as their menu, but the cousins were set on finding a place in Roseboro.

“We used to have a place where Vinny’s was, as we originally redid that building back in, I think, 2011, and we served pizza there,” Stone recalled. “We had a full menu, but we also served pizza. I’ve always wanted to come back and do pizza again. That said, I’m a firm believer in, if somebody else is running the same kind of business, I don’t step on toes, especially in a small community, you just don’t do it. And so, when Vinny’s closed, it was an opportunity.”

Stone said things just fell into place after seizing that opportunity, one she’s glad she took as it unintentionally reunited her family.

“Robby James happened to have the perfect building available as we were deciding to do this, so it just really all fell into place,” she said, I mean, it was pretty amazing.” Like I said, I wanted to come back for a long time, but Vinny’s was open, so I just didn’t push it. But then, with me selling my my pizza business in Texas, things just went boom, boom, boom. Then Buffy moved here and wanted to do something; now we’re just a dynamo team and it’s kind of fun always working together. My mom’s here now as well, my sister is too. Buffy’s dad, my uncle, he’s joined us also so it’s like having the whole family together again, like the old days when we were little.”

Speaking of booming, Roseboro has yet to slow down on its motto of making “Roseboro A Destination” and Butler spoke on what she believes is the draw that keeps bringing new business to the town.

“I just think there’s been a lot of excitement and we’ve had a lot of good people move into the area and not just in Roseboro but in Salemburg and Autryville,” Butler stated. “They have definitely helped our restaurants be successful with all the new housing and stuff that’s come into the area. Also, we just keep pushing for Roseboro, there’s a lot of advertising done and a lot of posts done to let people know that these businesses are here, and everybody loves good food.

“That’s one of the things in our market, being part of Small Town Main Street, they did a market study for us and restaurants is one of the things that they said we need to focus on. A lot of people eat out and if you’re gonna eat out why don’t you come to Roseboro. That was one of the areas that we were losing business and so we’ve continued to concentrate on that.”

That sense of growing community is also important to Stone and her family, so coming along with their new restaurant is a strong urge to give back.

“We’re really big on helping. Say it’s during football season, and if they want to serve pizza at their concession stand, we‘d do like 50 percent off for them so that they can make more money. Anybody can come to us and let us know what they got going on and we’ll usually try and do some sort of discount, because we know what it’s like trying to do an event, it can get expensive.

“That’s just some of what we’re hoping to do once we are open so we can’t wait to be back out serving this community we love,” Stone said.