One of the more creatively themed local restaurants to launch in the past five years will close its doors next month. Last night, David Dresner, founder of Crispy Edge, makers of “gourmet global potstickers,” announced on social media that his potsticker-focused restaurant of the same name would be closing September 2 in order to shift the company’s focus to its thriving grocery and wholesale business.
“The journey has been a crazy one,” Dresner says. “We’re proud of what we started, how we evolved, how Schnucks incubated us, how we adjusted and changed our business model, how we established relationships with local and now national food brokers, and how we continue to grow.”
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In this Q&A from 2017, Dresner told SLM that his original intention was to open more restaurants to “spread the word, expand the brand.” But in the end, he discovered that the way to achieve his goal of ‘bringing a better potsticker to the people’ was through grocery stores.
“The Crispy Edge restaurant was a great way to launch the product,” he says, “just not a great way to grow it.”
The first step was to sell to regional grocers through a local broker. He then realized that the path to the larger, national grocery chains was through trade shows. “If they like your product, they place the initial order on the spot, and you hope it catches on and they reorder,” he says. “That’s where we are now. We’re in 400 grocery stores, and we’re still growing.”
The Backstory
Years ago, Dresner loved Asian dumplings so much, he’d buy a bag from a local chop suey restaurant on his way home from grade school and eat the whole thing. Tapping on the creativity that Dresner says he inherited from his dad, he made countless varieties with his grandfather. The obsession continued into his mid-20s, when Dresner sought to upgrade all of the ingredients and “make the perfect dumpling—to take the ordinary, and make it extraordinary.” The result: Crispy Edge, a company that aimed to sell “globally inspired potstickers” in the United States and beyond.
Beginning in 2018, the flagship Crispy Edge restaurant featured a menu with a variety of flavor combinations, from the dough to the filling to the sauce. And because the dough represents 40 percent of the potsticker, they had to complement the fillings, so Dresner used seeds, spices, and textures to make them more visually appealing. The results were stunning and toothsome.
In 2020, Dresner’s USDA-approved plant began shipping frozen potstickers to small local grocers and then to Schnucks, where the initial order was for three tons worth.
In 2021, Crispy Edge was one of two Missouri businesses to gain federal certification through the USDA’s Cooperative Interstate Shipment program, which opened the door to national distribution. Crispy Edge products are currently available in more than 400 grocery stores, hotels, and restaurants, across 35 states.
