Four & Twenty Blackbirds
Dining · 1 location · Brooklyn: Gowanus
Order a pie for nationwide shipping and the brand reads like a chain. It's one Gowanus storefront now, after the Brooklyn Public Library café and the Prospect Heights pie counter both gave way to other operators, still owned by the sisters who started it.
The Big Picture
Emily and Melissa Elsen own Four & Twenty Blackbirds between them, with no investor, parent company, or franchise system anywhere in its structure, and its footprint has contracted to the single Gowanus shop it started in. Bakers start at $20 an hour, above New York City's minimum wage and slightly above the metro-area average for the job. As a one-shop business it publishes no environmental data and names no supplier on its current site, so the sisters who own it are the only people accountable for either.
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Explore all diningCompany data last updated August 2026
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