Longboards Wraps & Bowls will open in Mission next month

Five months after Longboards Wraps & Bowls founders John Bailey and Gilbert Macpagel signed a lease for the former Little Caesar’s Pizza location in the Mission Mart Center, the venue is almost ready. When Bailey spoke with The Pitch back in April, he was hoping for a July or August opening. The new date set for the Mission restaurant’s opening is mid-October.

“We’re waiting for a couple of permits,” Bailey says. “But we’re pretty much ready to go.”

Since opening the first Longboards at 6269 North Oak Trafficway 10 years ago, Bailey and Macpagel have built a loyal following for the fast-casual restaurant’s grilled wraps and sandwiches; a Liberty location opened in 2012.

The Mission Longboards’ menu mirrors that of the other Longboards restaurants in the metro, but the venue’s general manager, Brian Paisner, is hoping to add a few desserts.

“We’ve been talking about trying a sweet honey wrap filled with Nutella and bananas — something warm and gooey. We’re also batting around ideas for an ice-cream bar. Something nice and sweet to finish a meal, but nothing too crazy,” Paisner says.

Bailey and Macpagel mostly gutted the interior of the Little Caesar’s space. “We were hoping to utilize some of the equipment in the store,” Bailey says, “but as it turned out, there was very little that we wanted to reuse.”

The Longboards owners decided to open the third location based on the success of the one in Liberty. “If Mission does as well, we’ll definitely start looking for a fourth location,” Bailey says.

The Mission Longboards — which seats from 25 to 33 patrons — will be open from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. daily.

“Mission sort of rolls up the streets after 8 p.m.” Bailey says. “We’ll do some business after the lunch rush. We’re thinking that parents bringing their kids home from school might pick up dinner on the way home.”

The street construction that has slowed traffic — and hurt some businesses — along Johnson Drive isn’t worrying Bailey and Macpagel.

“A lot of that work has already been completed on our stretch of Johnson Drive,” Macpagel says. “I know it has caused problems for some of the small mom-and-pop businesses along Johnson Drive, but we’ve been told it’s all supposed to be completed by November.”

Those small businesses, Bailey adds, were one reason that they chose Mission.

“We like the fact that we’re between the tailor shop and the barber shop and not too far away from the post office,” Bailey says. “We envision people coming to this neighborhood to do their errands, then stopping in for lunch.”