When a lawyer and a classically-trained chef had the idea of opening a pizza joint in the middle of the 2008 recession, lots of people thought they were crazy. No less than three banks turned down the married couple for a loan, delivering repetitive lines like, “we just don’t have an appetite for restaurants right now.” Despite these warning signs, they pushed forward, begged and borrowed funds from eight of their best family and friends and built the first iteration of Black Sheep Pizza in the North Loop neighborhood of Minneapolis. Fourteen years later, Black Sheep Pizza is a thriving multiple-location Minneapolis favorite, and practically a Twin Cities-wide household name. Founders Jordan Smith and Colleen Doran could not be happier with the success their beloved restaurant has seen. “We still laugh at least once a day as we try to remember why we started in this crazy business,” Doran revealed, “we truly have had the best fourteen years of our lives.” The first coal-fired restaurant opened in Minnesota, the stand-alone taste of their pizza creations are not to be missed.