St. Louis Cellars Opening Doors On A New Vino & Food Experience

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Maplewood foodies and wine lovers are in for a treat starting this April when Saint Louis Cellars will open the doors on their new food venture, Saint Louis Cellars Food & Wine. In conjunction with their wine business, they will offer grab and go dinner and lunch items, a single table dining service, and elegant sandwiches in the building adjacent to their current shop. Matt and Jennifer Williams, owners of St. Louis Cellars, have partnered with longtime friend and well versed Chef Greg Maggi, whose resume includes Culinary Director at Pujols 5 and Executive Chef at Robust Wine Bar, to bring St. Louis simple and high quality foods in a whole new way. While they will have cafe tables for the lunch crowd and a 10 seat wine bar, "This really isn't a restaurant and we want to make that known, because we don't want to be a restaurant. We are a market," Maggi said. "And a cafe," Jennifer Williams added.

The model for St. Louis Cellars Food & Wine is unique to the St. Louis area - while they will offer light lunches, high quality, pre-made dinners and cooking classes the fine dining experience will be modeled after the single table restaurant that is becoming popular in Manhattan. Williams explained, "We're going to have one table that seats 12 people that is going to be available on Friday and Saturday nights for reservations only. You will get to have this amazing, chef inspired multi-course meal with wines, and a sommelier, and Greg telling you about the foods. You just have an amazing dinner that you get to be involved with as much or as little as you want."

While the complete dining experience will be available to those who are interested, they will have a wide range of menu items and services to fit any food personality and any budget. They are using the same model that has made the wine side of the business successful to bring new food experiences to their customers, "What we've done with St. Louis Cellars is that we've brought in 250 amazing wines, under $20 from all over the world and we've tried to make wine easy, friendly, fun and accessible to really anybody," Williams said, "We've opened up a whole new wine market in the wine business to be just sort of happy, friendly, fun and easy, and I think with St. Louis Cellars Food & Wine it's the same way. We don't want to be so gourmet that the average person would feel uncomfortable coming in to get a sandwich."

St. Louis Cellars Food & Wine will be opening in April in the same location where St. Louis Cellars currently houses their wine business, 2640 S. Big Bend. They will be open to the general public Monday through Saturday from 9am-7pm, and private events, cooking classes, and the single table dining experience will take place Monday through Saturday after 7pm.