Two young chefs remake a Lee’s Summit staple as Long-Bell Pizza Co.

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Sometimes being a regular customer really pays off.

by local chefs Aaron Mulder and Jayson Eggers, who both most recently worked at the Westport Ale House. They plan to reopen the pizzeria under a new name, Long-Bell Pizza Co., in mid-November.

Mulder and his wife, Samantha, live within walking distance of lawyer-turned-restaurateur Patrick Cuezze’s pizza parlor, and Mulder frequently stopped in for a beer or to pick up dinner.

“One night, Pat pulled me aside and told me he was contemplating selling the place,” Mulder says. “So I called up Jayson and asked him if he wanted to go into the pizza business.”

Mulder and Eggers had been planning to strike out on their own for some time. “We had been looking at other concepts,” Eggers says. “Maybe opening a deli, maybe a breakfast restaurant. We had business plans for all of the ideas. We hadn’t specifically thought about pizza.”

“But I love pizza,” Mulder adds. “I eat like a 13-year-old.”

Because they had a limited budget, Mulder and Eggers liked the idea of taking over an existing business. So they temporarily managed the venue before Next Door Pizza’s last day of operation, September 30.

“We learned a lot,” Eggers says. “We found out which employees were the most valuable and what things were clearly not working. It’s also when we decided we were going to have to brand the pizzeria with our own name. This is our first business, and we want to expand it.”

The chefs chose the name Long-Bell Pizza Co. after the lumber company that was a major Kansas City business from 1887 to 1956. Founded by Robert A. Long and Victor Bell, the company was a thriving concern until the Depression. In researching the name, Eggers discovered that the trademark for the Long-Bell company had expired in 1985. “It’s a name rich in history, especially in Lee’s Summit, where Robert Long created Longview Farm,” he tells me. “He was a true visionary for his time and did a lot of things for Kansas City. He built churches, hospitals and the mansion that’s now the Kansas City Museum.”

When the Long-Bell Pizza Co. officially opens next month, patrons of Next Door Pizza will discover some substantial changes: no more pizza buffet, no more salad bar and almost no more doors. Most of the 89 antique doors that Cuezze used to decorate the bar and dining room have been removed.

“We wanted to open this pizzeria with a clean slate,” Mulder says. “Patrick did a great job creating a lovable neighborhood pizza parlor. We want to continue that concept but with our own ideas.”

The menu at Long-Bell Pizza Co. will focus on 12 specialty pizzas with hand-tossed crusts.

“We’ll have six red-sauce pizzas and six white pizzas made with garlic cream sauce,” Eggers says. “We’ll have five appetizers, three salads and four sandwiches. Customers will still have the option of creating their own pizzas but from a less elaborate list of ingredients.”

“We won’t have a ham-and-pineapple pizza,” Mulder says. “We’re going to do a prosciutto-and-mango pizza instead.” Another featured pizza will be made with steak and gorgonzola cheese, and the Reuben sandwich here will center on pork belly.

The young restaurateurs — Mulder is 35, Eggers 33 — have done much of the physical labor of the build-out themselves. When the restaurant opens, it will offer seating for 130 and a selection of vintage arcade games.

“We’ll start offering specials after we’ve been open for a few months,” Eggers says. “We’re going to take things one step at a time. We want to build up our own clientele of regulars.”