York City Pretzel twists together entrepreneurship, city love

Through the course of the night, the talk — they all dislike hard pretzels, calling them “cardboard” and “flavorless” — evolves into a business plan.

But the plot involves more than dough, yeast and beer. Each of the friends brings a particular skill set to the table, making for what has become an innovative community effort to hand-manufacture small batches of hard and soft pretzels in downtown York.

The cast of characters in York City Pretzel Co. includes Meagan Feeser, who works for Downtown Inc and helps run Restaurant Week York; Philip Given, who co-owns Susquehanna Photographic and works on a number of food and small-business ventures with Rising Tide L.A.B.s, including Foodstruck; Ben McGlaughlin, a fourth-generation candy-maker and CEO at Wolfgang Candy Co. Inc. in York; Matthew Davis, a college professor who runs CrocodileDog Marketing, which operates several local beer and wine festivals, including Taste of PA; and Jordan Pfautz, co-owner of Baron Von Schwein, a food truck that opened a brick-and-mortar shop in downtown York this summer.

The story moves to 39 W. Market St., where the group rented space next door to Baron Von Schwein in the Rosenmiller Building. There, they plan to hand-twist and season their confections, made based on a traditional Bavarian-style recipe perfected after a contest between Given and Pfautz.

For the grand plans they have — selling soft pretzels wholesale to local bars and restaurants while filling a niche for small-batch flavored hard pretzels — the group has spent only $65,000 on their startup, which includes rent and equipment.

“We’re scrappy,” Given said. “We’re using our connections and the skills we collectively have to be able to get our product to market.”

Not your grandma’s pretzels

York County styles itself as the “Snack-food Capital of the World,” with the likes of Utz Quality Foods, Snyder’s-Lance, Martin’s Potato Chips and others.

“But (downtown) York is not really represented,” Feeser said.

Another key feature the group noticed was that while there are numerous small-batch brands of flavored potato chips, there are hardly any in the hard-pretzel arena, Given said.