SOPHIE MENDELSON
Sugarwitch, an ice-cream sandwich-focused trailer, opened this month on Olio's parking lot.
Things were certainly buzzing this month in the Central West End, as a few of the neighborhood's long-shuttered gathering places flipped on their lights again. The Tenderloin Room, which opened only a few months before the pandemic wreaked havoc on the restaurant industry, began welcoming guests for the first time since last August, while Gerard Craft's iconic cocktail bar, Taste, served its first drinks since March of 2020.
Then there's Brennan's, the quintessential Central West End watering hole, whose reopening after a St. Louis Chess Club-induced move — and also surviving a fire — is the hope we all need to get us through.
On the closing front, we lost Hunan Wok, the Chinese-American mainstay on Brentwood Boulevard (RIP, sesame chicken) and said an official goodbye to Utah Station, the formerly-fun Benton Park vegan spot whose story took a dark turn after an altercation inside the dining room and subsequent shooting outside its doors.
And though it's not a restaurant by any stretch of the imagination, we'd be remiss if we didn't say a tearful goodbye to the Way Out Club, Sherri Lucas and Bob Putnam's legendary bar and music venue that hosted its finally show on July 31. The void it leaves in the St. Louis music scene is impossible to state. Thanks for 27 years of memories, Bob and Sherri. We will miss you.
Did we miss anything? Leave a note in the comments.
Closings
Hunan Wok, Brentwood
Utah Station, Benton Park
The Way Out Club, Fox Park
Openings
Brennan's (moved), Central West End
CC's Vegan Spot (moved), Princeton Heights
Clementine's Creamery (additional location), Town & Country
DD Mau, Webster Groves
Goss'Up Pasta, Pagedale
The Port of Peri Peri, Manchester
Sugarwitch, Botanical Heights
Taco Circus @ Trops, the Grove
Taste (reopened) Central West End
The Tenderloin Room (reopened), Central West End
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