When restaurateurs and friends Debonette Wyatt, Denisha Hightower-Alston and Katie Fickling first toured a storefront on Waverly’s Greenmount Avenue six months ago, it took them five minutes to know they wanted it to be theirs.
“It literally happened so fast,” Fickling said. “We were just like, ‘This is it.’ All we wanted to know was how much the rent was.”
Headquarters, on 3433 Greenmount Ave. in North Baltimore, is slated to open Aug. 30. The restaurant is a collaboration between the friends, who each run their own Baltimore-area culinary businesses — Wyatt owns Oakenshawe vegan restaurant and pop-up My Mamas Vegan, Hightower-Alston owns dessert food truck Love, Puddin’, and Fickling owns catering business Gorgeous Gourmet.
Hightower-Alston said the trio’s shared entrepreneurial spirit, as well as the opportunity to create a restaurant with more diverse cuisine, inspired them to join forces.
“[Fickling] was doing nonvegan, [Wyatt] was specializing in vegan and I was the dessert lady. Everyone pretty much stays in their respective corners,” she said. “It was just like, ‘Why not come together and make magic?’”
At Headquarters, the menu features both popular items and new innovations — and diversions — from each chef’s typical cuisine, including a hefty, animal-based pastrami-grilled-cheese sandwich from Fickling, vegan spare ribs and pickle-packed potato salad from Wyatt, and a velvety Biscoff cookie pudding from Hightower-Alston. The menu will feature rotating dishes and scratch-made sauces weekly.
While each chef expressed pride in their “niche,” they hope the collaboration will allow them to satisfy more dietary restrictions and palates, with dairy-free, gluten-free and pescatarian options available on the shared menu.
“Me being plant-based, and my daughter not, when I go to get something, I then have to turn around and find her something,” Wyatt said. “Being able to provide options for everybody is a win-win.”
The opening of Headquarters marks Wyatt’s first time cooking in a nonvegan kitchen in six years. While she will stick to plant-based cuisine, she said she feels “confident” about keeping vegan food, as well as gluten-free, dairy-free and pescatarian dishes, free from cross-contamination.
“[Fickling and Hightower-Alston] have high standards for their brands as well,” she said. “I wouldn’t do it with anybody else but them.”
For Hightower-Alston, who has previously had experience only operating a food truck, working in a brick-and-mortar is a curveball — but something she said she’s excited to embrace.
“I didn’t expect to be actually in a brick-and-mortar. So many people discouraged me, because of the overhead and things of that nature,” she said. “But I realized that in order to grow, you most definitely have to have a team.”
Headquarters is in its soft opening phase, serving a limited menu. The group has its eyes on future expansion to multiple Baltimore locations, as well as other Southern cities. For now, they look forward to operating a restaurant that showcases all three of their skill sets.
“When you find good friendships and great connections, the collaboration is much more valuable than the competition,” Fickling said.
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