After 30 years in the restaurant business, Jeff and Mandy Cooke finally opened their own place, This Little Pig, in 2017, in a Transit Road plaza.
The Cookes proved they could fly their own restaurant. This Little Pig’s barbecue, eclectic specials and kicked-up Americana served hundreds each night.
At This Little Pig, regulars return for the glow of trust rewarded. It offers more dishes of the moment than restaurants twice its size.
Making the restaurant serve its owners was another kettle of fish.
After the Cookes’ accountant read their numbers and predicted they could retire at 70, they decided getting all the way in, and owning their own building, was the only way to go.
“If we kept going like this, leasing and running a business with these margins, we might never really get to retire,” he said.
At 10651 Main St. in Clarence, formerly Cornerstone Bar & Grill, the Cookes are taking the long view, having bought the building as a bet on their future.
The new This Little Pig is an upgrade that starts with roomier dining rooms, built for the purpose, instead of generic commercial cubes.
The new place seats about 150, with a bar and three dining rooms on the first floor. There’s a private room for 20, but no outdoor seating yet.
The old place could sit…
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