MESA, AZ — From Facebook Marketplace to a Mesa storefront, the newly opened businesses in the East Valley called ‘The Salted Knot’ has risen to success and has quite the backstory!
From its pretzels to the design style inside the location, everything is ‘knotted’ together.
Here’s what Maria Vassett, owner, shared with ABC15.
WHAT’S FOR SALE?
Well, pretzels… obviously, but in what way? The pretzels come in a wide variety.
Some of the unique ones of the selection include the Pretzel Pickles, their Peanut Butter Bombs, the Hot Cheeto Knot, and the Pretzel Bratwurst.
There are vegan options available and there are “bites” available too.
“Everything is made to order. And I think, you know, people have the idea that it's a pretzel, it should just be ready to go. Like if you were to pick it up, maybe at the mall or something else. There's not a lot of wait time, but everything we do is hand rolled, handmade, you know, so when you come in and you order, it might take a couple extra minutes… it's totally worth it,” said Vassett in an interview with ABC15.
HOW IT STARTED
Vassett started her business during the pandemic in November 2020; at the time she was a concert photographer for Live Nation and a social worker on the Gila River Reservation.
![“I just felt that it was it was great, because I could finally have a place to share my photos along with bringing happiness to others who had stories about those bands that they had seen,” said Vassett. “It's really cool because it just has everybody's talking about music… it's wonderful because it brings in an atmosphere where people are comfortable.” [The image- Vassett chats with customers about the band pictures on the wall.]](https://ewscripps.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/1f73080/2147483647/strip/true/crop/3520x1980+0+0/resize/1280x720!/quality/90/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fewscripps-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F5b%2F86%2F6f447044486a8507974d5fd089f1%2Fnew-knots-30.JPG)
So why go into rolling out pretzels?
“I just wanted to make a pretzel. And so, I made a pretzel and gave it to friends for holiday and they really liked them,” recalled Vassett. “I put it on Facebook marketplace to see if anybody else wanted to come and get some pretzels.”
“PRETZEL PUSHERS”
Vassett and her husband ‘Chad’ began rolling out more and more pretzels due to the high demand on Facebook Marketplace; customers would pick up the pretzels from their house -four days a week- for about a year.
Vassett says that “word of mouth” was the best marketing for them.
“[Customers] pre-ordered and we were sold out and our neighbors started calling us ‘pretzel pushers,’ which was great, so we kept that name and then we just kind of tapped out. So, we moved into a commercial kitchen because we just couldn't grow anymore. So, we were two years in the commercial kitchen that allowed us to do market at Gilbert Farmers Market, Uptown Farmers Market Scottsdale, a lot of Tempe events, and different festivals, things that were coming up,” said Vassett. “We did 4,000 for the Super Bowl last... and that kind of opened up the door for looking for a place since we couldn't really keep up with all the orders that we were getting.”
The Salted Knot opened its doors to its storefront in December 2023.
IF YOU GO
- Address: 21 W Main St in Mesa
- Hours of operation
- Tuesday- Thursday from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m.
- Friday & Saturday from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m.
- Closed on Sunday and Monday