Creperie planned for Reynolda Village

Miro Buzov is hesitant to say that he’s opening a second location of Penny Path Café — his famous creperie based in downtown High Point — but plans are well underway.

Buzov recently signed a lease for the space formerly occupied by Dioli’s, and his business is already listed as “coming soon” on the Reynolda Village website. (Dioli’s maintains its shop up the street.)

Buzov had already planned to expand to Winston-Salem. Triad City Beat reported almost exactly two years ago that the creperie would add a shop on Trade Street, a few doors down from Finnigan’s Wake. But after trying for years to make the space work, particularly from a financial standpoint, Buzov said he realized it was time to give up.

The opportunity to open in Reynolda Village became a way to shift gears.

His experience on Trade is part of the reason Buzov is slightly reluctant to trumpet his plans for the restaurant near Wake Forest University. That’s understandable. But he said Monday that he intends to have plans for redrawing the kitchen to the Forsyth County Health Department later this week, and said he’s hopeful that things will move smoothly.

We don’t typically post on new restaurants opening, at least until they actually serve their first meal. But Penny Path is different.

For almost five years, Buzov has held down an unlikely business in a relatively small storefront in downtown High Point. That part of the city is dead for almost 50 weeks a year — every week except for High Point Furniture Market — yet Penny Path remains busy. Even though the unofficial downtown of the Third City is actually Uptowne, where Brown Truck Brewery is located, the creperie remains full despite a lack of foot traffic or active storefronts nearby.

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To survive there is nothing short of Herculean, and says all you need to know about the quality of the restaurant’s product. And Buzov is one of the only restaurant owners around who will go on tangents describing his mission to pay people a comfortable salary, focusing more on his ambitions for his team than padding his own ego or accomplishments. He’s not there yet, but this expansion is hopefully a step on that path, he said.

People, myself included, are willing to travel to High Point just for Buzov’s crepes, which range from sweet to savory and light to filling. He won’t be the only business focused on crepes in Winston-Salem — there’s also the pink La Vie en Rose food truck — but he’ll be the prime brick & mortar destination.

And while Buzov could expand the High Point business’ footprint based on existing customer demand, the Reynolda Village location will outsize its High Peezy counterpart. With that space, Buzov intends to stretch his legs on the menu, offering various specials including meat, soups and salads as well as German food and potentially cold cuts as well.

Penny Path will, no doubt, be a huge hit with Wake Forest students. But it also fits well with the changing culinary landscape of the shopping center by Reynolda House, including a rebooted Silo Bistro & Bar and the incredible May Way Dumplings (as well as the more generic Village Tavern chain). Dioli’s fit well with that smorgasbord too, but in its absence, Penny Path is an excellent addition to the complex.

For those unfamiliar, the location also boasts a relaxing patio by the main entrance, and faces Reynolda Road, not far from Silas Creek Parkway. The Winston-Salem iteration will bear the same name as the first — Penny Path Café & Crepe Shop.

If the Reynolda Village location is popular enough, Buzov could look to open a third restaurant, this time in Greensboro. Which is to say that plenty of people in the Gate City are counting on the kids of Wake Forest gaining that Freshman 15, and then some.

Visit the existing Penny Path Café & Crepe Shop at 104 Martin Luther King Jr. Drive (HP) and keep an eye out for the planned creperie in Reynolda Village at 2201 Reynolda Road (W-S), or find it on Facebook.