Before Flatbread Co. Opens at Bedford Highlands, Someone Has to Build the Oven

The first sign that IHOP was gone came from two women who met regularly at Pressed Cafe. According to the Union Leader, they looked across the parking lot one afternoon and saw that the restaurant's sign was missing, though it had been there the last time they came. The International House of Pancakes at 224 South River Road had closed a few weeks earlier, even though its website still listed it as open.

Now there's a new sign on the same building. It reads "Coming January 2027," and it belongs to Flatbread Co.

That sign is the most concrete public fact about the project. Flatbread doesn't open restaurants the way a pancake chain does, though. Each location gets a hand-built oven, and the company ties its presence to local organizations through a weekly fundraising night. For Bedford, that means the clearest progress reports will probably come from the building itself and from the local groups the restaurant works with. A press release may come later.

What Is Actually Confirmed

Jonathan Phelps first reported the Flatbread news in the Union Leader's New Business column. The story went up about nine days ago, in mid-September 2026. Phelps described the location the way anyone who shops there would: a building "high above the road at Bedford Highlands," in the plaza with Lowe's, Target, and Pressed Cafe.

The article also said that several representatives of the company could not be reached, so it included no comment from Flatbread about Bedford.

A missing Planning Board item doesn't mean the project has stalled. Reusing an existing restaurant building may not need that kind of review, and building permits aren't listed on those agendas. It does mean the town's public calendar can't show you how the project is progressing. The building will.

The building itself isn't old by commercial standards. Town assessor records show it was built in 2005. It was designed as a chain pancake house, though, and Flatbread's kitchen is built around something very different.

Why the Oven Is the Real Timeline

Flatbread started in Amesbury, Massachusetts, in the summer of 1998. The Union Leader notes that few restaurants were serving organic, locally produced food then. The company cooks its pies in what it calls primitive clay and stone ovens, handmade from natural materials, and uses organic ingredients and free-range meats.

The company doesn't buy these ovens and roll them in. They're built on site, and Flatbread treats the build as part of how it joins a town. The company's website says: "Each time we build our ovens in new locations, it is our mission to become an integral part of the fabric of that community through our sustained actions."

The closest recent example is in New Hampshire. Flatbread's North Conway restaurant opened in 2001 in the Eastern Slope Inn Resort. After 24 years there, it moved to a new building at 2952 White Mountain Highway. For the move, the company got help from family, friends, and North Conway residents to mix "earthen bricks" and shape them into dome-shaped ovens.

Nobody has said whether Bedford's oven will be built the same way, or when. If the North Conway approach carries over, the oven build is the step to watch at 224 South River Road. A former pancake-house kitchen needs a dome oven before it can serve an earth-oven pizza, and that oven is built by hand. A January date on a sign is a target. A finished oven is the sign that the restaurant is close to opening.

Tuesday Nights, and What They Ask of Local Groups

The second thing Flatbread tends to bring to a town is a weekly benefit night. Its North Conway and Portsmouth location pages both describe Tuesday community-benefit nights as the main way those restaurants support local organizations.

The company calls the program "Community Bake: Pizza With Purpose." On the online application, Flatbread lists a donation of $3.50 for each large and $1.75 for each small flatbread sold during a group's bake. That application page dates to 2022. Those were the listed amounts when the page was posted, and the rates in effect when Bedford opens may be different.

The donation isn't passive. Before applying, an organization has to agree to Flatbread's "Recipe for Success," which includes:

1. Hand-painting a canvas banner with the organization's name, the bake date, and details such as a silent auction or raffle, and delivering it to the restaurant at least two weeks ahead.
2. Creating a co-branded social media graphic that Flatbread approves, and tagging the restaurant when posting.
3. Promoting the bake through the group's own email list, and asking local merchants to post fliers.
4. Sending a representative to the bake with materials about the group's mission.
5. Issuing a co-branded press release afterward, once Flatbread approves it.

Under this model, the organization does a good share of the marketing for its own night. Bedford has plenty of groups that raise money through events, including booster clubs, scout troops, and service organizations. If the Bedford restaurant runs the same program as its New Hampshire counterparts, those groups could have a new weekly fundraising option on South River Road. Nothing about Bedford's version of the program has been announced. For now, the North Conway and Portsmouth pages are the best guide to how it would work.

Where to Get Flatbread Until Then

Flatbread's locations directory currently lists six hearths: Paia on Maui, Portland in Maine, Amesbury, North Conway, Portsmouth, and Providence. Two of them are in New Hampshire.

• Portsmouth: 138 Congress Street
• North Conway: 2952 White Mountain Highway, the building that replaced its long run at the Eastern Slope Inn

For a Bedford household, both are day-trip distances. A South River Road location would be Flatbread's first in the greater Manchester area. The company's site also uses "Bedford MA" in its fundraiser form. That's a separate Massachusetts listing, not an early sign of the New Hampshire restaurant, and it's easy to confuse the two when searching.

What Changes at Bedford Highlands

The plaza is getting a sit-down pizza restaurant, and the stretch of South River Road around it has seen chain turnover before. When IHOP closed, the Union Leader pointed out that a former IHOP in Newington had become a Tucker's. It called the same move unlikely in Bedford, because Tucker's already operates down the street in the former Outback Steakhouse. Its Flatbread story ran under a headline that included a related Salem change: Michael's Flatbread Bar & Grill has been renamed Michael's American Bar & Grill. That Salem restaurant has nothing to do with the Bedford project.

Pressed Cafe stays where it is next door. Once the new restaurant opens, the plaza will have a daytime cafe and an evening pizza place. Before that, the building has to change. Watch for construction activity inside the former IHOP, a Bedford, NH entry on Flatbread's locations page, and a hiring notice. Any of those will tell you more about the timing than the sign on the road.

A former chain restaurant becoming a locally rooted one is a small version of something that happens across southern New Hampshire's commercial corridors: a building's second use often looks very different from its first. At REEN USA, Gail McCarthy follows changes like this one on South River Road because they shape how a neighborhood lives day to day. If you're curious what's happening at other properties around Bedford Highlands, or what a reuse like this means nearby, let's connect.