Flavor Ninjas Move Into Downtown Bentonville

Pink House Alchemy LLC founder Emily Lawson wants to do more than market small-batch, handcrafted syrups and elixirs at her soon-to-open retail space, to do more than push specialty cocktails and espresso drinks at her consecutively opening bar/coffee house.

With both locations popping up in downtown Bentonville during the next month, Lawson and her team aim to expand the visibility and reach of their signature product, one they have been honing since starting the company more than two years ago in Fayetteville.

It’s not Pink House’s spicy Smoldered Bitters, an acerbic liquor infused with smoked chipotle pepper, rich black currant fruit and vanilla.

It’s not vinegar-based concoction Pineapple Rosemary Shrub, used to deepen the flavor of everything from margaritas to stir-fry.

It’s not even Pink House’s best-seller, the Vanilla Bean Syrup — although Lawson takes great pride that it is made from vanilla beans sourced directly from a farm in Madagascar, and attests that, “It’s, like, the best on the planet.”

While distinctive drink additives are the foundation of its business, Pink House’s signature product is cultivation of a “flavor experience” for each customer.

“We call ourselves flavor ninjas,” Lawson said.

She is a seasoned chef who earned her spurs on the Telluride, Colorado, restaurant circuit and made her mark locally as a consulting chef and as general manager of Arsaga’s The Depot, during and after its 2012 opening. It was within that position that she hatched the idea for Pink House. 

Lawson enjoyed nurturing the budding establishment at The Depot. Her heart and soul went into the project. However, her preferred assignment was working the Arsaga’s booth at the Fayetteville Farmers Market, on Saturday mornings on the downtown square.

There, she was able to be creative and interact with people, while removed from the stress of a bustling Dickson Street restaurant.

One summer Saturday, the aroma of lavender lingered near her drink booth — it was being sold in bunches by neighboring vendor Ugly Bunny Gardens — and inspiration struck.

“Let’s make lavender iced coffee and lavender lemonade,” Lawson recalls saying, excitedly.

 

Culinary Roots

Appreciation for good food and drink came at an early age for Lawson.

“My earliest memories are smells,” she said.

Her great-grandmother, whom she calls Nana, is now 98 years old, but only last year moved off her Springfield, Missouri, farm and stopped cooking for the entire family.

Lawson was always fascinated with the adept, efficient manner with which her Nana operated in the kitchen. “I remember watching how she moved when she made bread, how she held a knife and how she stood,” she said. “It was just magic.”

Though not a trained chef, Nana was also not a typical home cook. She milked cows, made her own cheese and butchered her own meat.

She also cooked from memory and used her hands to weigh flour, employing pastry-making techniques that Lawson, after she had some training under her belt, recognized as those used in French patisseries.

Although Lawson started her kitchen career as a dishwasher and line cook, she quickly decided she found her niche, and began taking culinary classes and knife-work training.

Most of her on-the-job restaurant training was during the eight years she lived in Colorado, where she moved after high school, but she also worked stints for chefs in New Orleans and Canada. 

In 2004, she moved to Northwest Arkansas to study nutrition at the University of Arkansas. She received her degree and began to pursue medical school, but her plans were interrupted when her mother was diagnosed with cancer and died in 2010.

Eventually, a new path led her to Arsaga’s.

At the farmers market that fateful summer day, her enthusiasm about the lavender syrup undertaking only escalated, as she thought about the possibilities.

“Let’s make the best-tasting lavender syrup ever,” she remembers saying.

In the following months, the elements of a burgeoning enterprise began to fall into place. “It was a no-brainer,” she said.

Lawson began manufacturing simple syrups from a 113-year-old pink house she lived in at the time. She then began writing recipes using her products into local menus, and then the establishments would purchase them.

The business grew from there. “I knew and hoped that Pink House would be something really big,” Lawson said.

Today, Pink House’s Lavender Simple Syrup is still a bestseller.

 

Flavor Profile

Pink House now manufactures and sells an average of 2,000 to 4,000 bottles per month.

According to the Pink House website, simple syrup comes in 20 flavors, and a 16-ounce bottle goes for $13. Shrub comes in two varieties, and a 16-ounce bottle sells for $18. Bitters comes in four flavors and costs $19 per 4-ounce bottle.

The company drop-ships to retail stores in Seattle, Los Angeles and New York City, and has a distributor that delivers throughout Arkansas, Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma and northern Texas. Pink House products are sold in Whole Foods Markets in those regions. 

For Lawson, the goal is to scale up the production facility and “really go national,” she said.

One way Lawson is prepping to grow the company is through participation in the U.S. Small Business Administration-backed ScaleUp America initiative. Pink House was one of 14 local startups chosen to participate in the first round of the accelerator, which is locally run by Startup Junkie Consulting.

Perhaps the most pivitol stepping stone is the company’s imminent Bentonville debut.

The retail location is planned to open Dec. 19, at 1010 S.W. A St., on a property that bears a marked resemblance to the pink house in Fayetteville, which is depicted on the product’s packaging.

While the original pink house inspired the branding of the business and is its namesake, before long, demand required that manufacturing be moved to a larger facility in Fayetteville.

That facility is still in use, and Lawson and her family live in Fayetteville. However, she is excited about the prospect of setting up shop in its northern neighbor, a hot spot.

“Bentonville is just full of innovation. It’s new, it’s different and changing all the time,” Lawson said. “There, I can meet with other young innovators from throughout the world.”

Noting the growing community of artists and makers popping up in the city, Lawson said, “It feels like it can be anything you make it. We have the opportunity to create something incredibly unique.”

It appears Lawson is doing just that.

In the Arts District, a few blocks away from the retail spot, Pink House will open Foxhole, at 401 S.W. A St. in the bottom floor of the Thrive development.

Open from 7 a.m. to 1 a.m., six days a week, the menu will feature steamed buns, cocktails, coffee drinks and will showcase Pink House’s products.

Lawson said the feel would be “very urban,” and the spot is planned to open before the new year.

“I can’t wait to share it with people throughout the world.”