Philosopher Henry David Thoreau stated: “Success usually comes to those who are too busy to be looking for it.” That would be true of Katie Lee, who not only grew her single restaurant to three, including a 10,000-square-foot restaurant and event space at Ballpark Village in St. Louis, but parlayed her handmade artisan Italian fare into frozen foods featured in more than 1,000 grocery stores nationwide.
“Instead of laying people off during COVID, I pivoted in 72 hours,” says Katie, founder of Katie’s Pizza & Pasta, now in three locations including Ballpark Village, Rock Hill and Town and Country. “I prototyped my frozen pizza, put up a website and sold them online and door-to-door. I turned my servers and bartenders into delivery drivers and my dining room into an assembly line with my cooks. I sold 50,000 pizzas in the first six weeks.”
She also built a frozen foods manufacturing headquarters in Creve Coeur in 2021 with space for research and development of new products.
“We’ve learned some powerful lessons, mostly perseverance and the incredibly positive effect a strong team and community can have on our business,” Katie says.
Katie’s late father, Tom Lee, who opened the business with her in 2008, liked quotes and lessons. In fact, several of his are listed on the company’s menu. “You’ll go farther with street smarts than book smarts,” “Say you’re sorry,” and “Keep it simple, stupid” were just a few.
Katie hasn’t just devised a way to keep her employees working, she’s helped people throughout her community. She’s now in her 10th year of hosting “Giveback Tuesday,” wherein she donates an entire day’s profits on the fourth Tuesday of every month to nonprofit organizations. Additionally, for every frozen pizza order, Katie donates a frozen pizza to local food banks. To date, she’s given away thousands of frozen pizzas and $450,000 to local charities.
Some of the 100-plus charities Katie’s has given to include Colton’s Cause, which provides financial support to families of special needs children and young adults; the Ten8 Project that supports men and women in service in police and fire departments; and GiFT, dedicated to supporting families with critically ill newborns.
Katie debuted her line of frozen Italian foods locally in Dierbergs Markets. But today, they’re offered in grocery stores across the country. And now, she even delivers her frozen pizzas all over America, too, including Hawaii and Alaska.
Just a few of Katie’s specialties include appetizers like Cannellini Bean Dip, Famous Fried Artichokes and Charred Cauliflower; burratas like Huckleberry Burrata, and Burrata Black Garlic Cheese Bread; salads like Calabrian Kale Caesar, and Watermelon; pastas like Herb-Stamped Ravioli and Bucatini Cacio E Pepe; and pizzas like Ezzo Pepperoni and Margherita Extra Di Bufala.
Katie offers same-day delivery within a 35-mile radius of St. Louis and two-day shipping for the rest of America. All frozen pizzas are hand-stretched and wood-fired in Katie’s white oak ovens and topped with specialty Italian meats, cheeses and local vegetables, then sealed and blast-frozen. “So, they taste like they were just made fresh in the restaurant,” she says. "All products are made in-house from scratch, every pasta house-extruded with fresh semolina and local farm eggs."
Katie says she worked in restaurants since living in Florence, Italy, in her late teens with her mother, Belinda Lee, who was an art teacher for a study abroad program with Washington University.
In 2008, at 25 years old, and with less than $50,000, Katie opened Katie’s Pizza & Pasta with her dad, Tom, and the late Rolando Colon, in an old junk store they owned in St. Louis. Her mom painted a mural map of Firenze on the wall. The first pie they sold was a Margherita Pizza.
Katie says Rolando was a Cuban refugee dishwasher she met as a young girl working in restaurants. “He became like a second father to me and worked with me my whole life,” she says of him. “He believed that happiness was through the stomach, and if you were full, you were happy.”
It’s still a family business. Today, Katie works with her mother and her brother Johnny Lee.
But COVID wasn’t her first trial. The recession of 2008 took that spot. Then when Highway 40 was shut down and Clayton Road turned into a highway, everything changed. “My dad always said, ‘Pain is the only teacher,’” Katie wrote on the menu. “In the end, we learned a lot, humbled ourselves, and everyone got sober. Time is crazy. It all seems like a dream. Maybe it was. We lost my dad and Rolando during the pandemic. More pain, more teaching, but very grateful to have started this thing with them, learning their sage lessons, and having their spirits guide me and us today. They’re everywhere in everything we do.”
To date, through "Give Back Tuesday," Katie’s given away thousands of frozen pizzas and more than $450,000 to local charities.
"I turned my servers and bartenders into delivery drivers and my dining room into an assembly line with my cooks. I sold 50,000 pizzas in the first six weeks." ~Katie Lee