PaPPo’s Pizzeria signs south-side lease

Last edited 3:30 p.m., April 26, 2017

PaPPo’s Pizzeria and Pub is targeting a summer launch for its second Springfield restaurant.

Owner Chris Galloway signed a lease April 21 at Battlefield Market Place for space left vacant in January by Gusano’s Chicago-Style Pizzeria. The center is owned by Battlefield Market Place LLC. Randy Magers is listed on the Missouri secretary of state's website for the LLC.

“We have had, for five straight years, people just clamoring for us to go to the south side,” he said, referencing his company’s first restaurant that opened downtown in November 2012. “What appealed to us with this one is that we’re right in the center of the shopping district, yet we’re near families.”

Galloway plans to invest $150,000 for infill work at 900 E. Battlefield Road, Ste. 176. He signed a 2.5-year lease at $15 per square foot monthly for the 5,800-square-foot space, with two five-year options. Kaitlin Oxenreider, Galloway’s general manager at the 221 E. Walnut St. eatery, is being promoted to lead 55 staff at the Battlefield Road restaurant as an operating partner.

PaPPo’s will be the fourth restaurant to operate at the high-turnover Battlefield Market Place space since Bandana’s Bar-B-Q closed in July 2014. The same people behind the Bandana’s franchise opened The Filling Station that summer, but it closed later that year when owners cited a disagreement with Bandana’s. Gusano’s opened in April 2015.

Galloway said he’s not concerned by those closures.

“Everyone whose been in there, from my research, has had management issues,” Galloway said. “Kaitlin has proven herself downtown, and she’s from south Springfield.

“When you make things from scratch, you make really good food and you have really good service, you’re going to win.”

Known for its fresh ingredients and cleverly named pies, such as the Kitchen Sink, PaPPo’s employs 26 at its 3,000-square-foot downtown restaurant. His company’s St. Louis brewpub also makes house beers for the chain, and Galloway said the Battlefield Road restaurant will have 36 taps. It will seat around 180, as well as additional customers on the patio. Live music also is in the works, he said.

The south-side Springfield restaurant will be the fourth for PaPPo’s. The company also operates in Osage Beach and St. Louis.

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