Both Cracked Pepper cafes in Peoria are in hibernation, but future more hopeful for one

PEORIA – Cracked Pepper's former location in the Peoria Metro Centre is now officially up for lease. But if a new tenant isn’t found, the restaurant could re-open in the future. 

“Our plan as of right now is if somebody else wants to sub-lease the location, I would make them a heck of a deal to get in there," said Travis Mohlenbrink, founder the Cracked Pepper. Mohlenbrink grew that initial business into Spice Hospitality, a group of six dining, catering and brewing establishments. “I’d love to see it operational. I spent a lot of time and effort to make that place look the way it looks today, so I’d love to see somebody using that location to serve food out of. Just, for us right now, with staffing, I’m kind of focusing on this other project.” 

The other project is Saffron Social, an upscale restaurant Mohlenbrink is building in the new OSF headquarters in downtown Peoria.

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Cracked Pepper was Mohlenbrink’s first endeavor. It opened in 2005 as a catering business, with the café coming shortly after. Originally located at 3406 NE Adams, the café moved to the Peoria Metro Centre in 2017. Things got tough during the pandemic for all restaurants, and carry-out wasn’t sustaining Cracked Pepper, said Mohlenbrink. 

“It wasn’t worth it for us to continue operating with carryout only,” he said. “Then once things opened back up, I tried to re-staff everywhere and we ended up just pulling some employees that worked at restaurant A to work in restaurant B.” 

Staffing has been a real issue for most area restaurants. Since Cracked Pepper is a soup and sandwich restaurant, with the lowest price menu of the restaurants in the Spice chain, and therefore the lowest profit margin, it has remained closed. 

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A little more hope for Downtown location

The second Cracked Pepper location at 311 Main Street is also on hold, but the future is a bit more certain for that location. 

"I know it sounds wild to wait for one company to go back to work, but honestly until Caterpillar gets back to work in some of those building downtown, it’s just not worth our time to be in that space,” said Mohlenbrink.  

The two employees who staff the downtown Cracked Pepper are currently working at other restaurants in the Spice chain.  

“They can’t wait to get back to that location,” said Mohlenbrink. “A lot of their customers are regular customers. They can’t wait to get back to work and see those guys.” 

Though the Cracked Pepper cafes are in hibernation at the moment, Cracked Pepper Catering is still doing quite well, said Mohlenbrink. 

“We are still full-on catering. We do catering off-site and at the Warehouse on State." 

Leslie Renken can be reached at (309) 370-5087 or lrenken@pjstar.com. Follow her on Facebook.com/leslie.renken.