The owner of Rosa’s Fresh Pizza is trading slices for coworking space

Back in the day, small business owners didn’t need much more than a cramped lil office in the back to tend to their bookkeeping and such.

For 29-year-old Mason Wartman, owner of pay-it-forward pizza shop Rosa’s Fresh Pizza, it just wasn’t enough. And so he went to Benjamin’s Desk with a proposal: free weekly pizzas for their coworking sites in exchange for some space for himself.

The proposal stuck, and Wartman can now be found mornings at Benjamin’s Desk 601 Walnut location taking calls or catching up on email.

“Over the years, Rosa’s has developed partnerships with larger corporations,” said Wartman, a former Wall Street associate turned business owner. “I’m looking to grow these partnerships and needed some office space for the increase in associated administrative work.”

Rosa’s Fresh Pizza opened up shop in 2013 on 11th Street near Jefferson Station. It caught buzz for its pay-it-forward model, where customers can purchase $1 slices for people in need to consume. It led Wartman all the way to Ellen DeGeneres’ show:

So besides the piping hot pizzas, what does the MontCo native bring to the coworking environment? Wartman answered with a critique worth hearing out.

“There’s definitely some amazing stuff going on nowadays but I think companies that focus on technology run a risk of ignoring the problems in the world around them, many of which cannot be fixed by software or internet businesses.” he said. “That focus on hyper-local community development as well as assisting those citizens affected by deep poverty are unique aspects of Rosa’s work that I’m happy to bring to the Benjamin’s Desk community.”