After almost a decade at their 10th Street and Weschler Avenue location, the owner of Pineapple Eddie Southern Bistro decided months ago to move.
The new location was supposed to open this fall but it’s not looking like that’s going to happen.
The owner of Pineapple Eddie has been in the process to relocate to the former Pie in the Sky location on West 8th Street.
She told us the move is being delayed once again, if they ever get the chance to move at all.
Karen Thomas, the owner of Pineapple Eddie Southern Bistro, has been looking for opportunities to add to her business in its current neighborhood.
“We applied for this funding originally lined up with purchasing the building also in the same neighborhood with the opportunity to do better business,” Karen Thomas said. “We were pretty excited about the opportunity.”
Thomas told us this grant was supposed to create the ability for her small business to level up and that she had no idea that she would be in this position months later — still waiting for an approval.
Gary Lee, the Chief Administrative Officer at Diverse Erie, said their organization has recently hit a reset button.
“Things were on pause for about seven months due to the situation with the board. Now we have a fully reconstituted board and we’re ready to move forward,” said Gary Lee.
Lee said on June 15, the grants review committee is looking forward to making recommendations and having the board vote at its next meeting.
“We had a total of 19 applications submitted for as slightly above $5 million, so as you can imagine, it is a pretty intense process,” Lee said.
“Grants are not always available to for-profits, so when one presents itself for us, it’s really an opportunity to sometimes change the landscape in a community,” Thomas explained.
Thomas said this move will help advance her small business while continuing to support and be a part of the community.
“I’m sure that there’s a lot of people that travel to other cities and enjoy the charm of local business. Local business can’t survive if they’re not given an opportunity to grow,” Thomas went on to say.
Thomas said that they will keep going at their location until an opportunity presents itself for them to show up on that corner.
