"It's a bigger shoe to fill," Adam Tilford told St. Louis Magazine in September. He was talking about Sobremesa, his Mexican restaurant at the Streets of St. Charles, and the number of customers needed to keep a room that size going. Sobremesa had 7,500 square feet, 195 indoor seats, 40 more outdoors and a separate arcade. It opened in June in the former Session Taco Joint space and served its last dinner on Sunday, September 13.
Other businesses opened this fall, and they look very different. One is a bookstore and bar in a former physical therapy office on West Clay. Another is a food truck garden in a 1940s Texaco station in Frenchtown. Both are small and both moved into buildings that were already standing. At the same time, the city has crews digging along the route that will connect Frenchtown to Historic Main Street.
What a room built for 235 people needs on a weeknight
The Streets of St. Charles had two notable closings this summer. Crushed Red's location at 165 Beale, Suite 117, served its last day on July 25. That was the same weekend the chain closed its Ballwin location. Founder Chris LaRocca has more than 40 years in the restaurant business. He said the data he used to pick both sites still looked right, and that "both stores were performing well below our projections."
Sobremesa's owners gave a similar reason. Their goodbye post said "sales are not close to where they need to be to sustain operations." Tilford said he might have kept testing the space "had sales even been closer to break even." He also said the size of the room, which was never a problem in his company's early years, "weighs heavier now." Sobremesa gift cards still work at the open Session Taco locations and at LaPeZ Mod Mex.
To be fair, Sobremesa was itself one of the Streets' 2026 openings. Its June launch shows that operators still want to lease space there. The lesson from this year has more to do with size than location. A dining room with almost 200 indoor seats needs a full house most nights. The businesses that opened this fall were built to need far fewer customers.
A bookstore with no kitchen on West Clay
Sisters Sarah and Julie Davison spent close to a year and a half planning Tomes & Tonics at 2454 W. Clay St. They got their building permits the week of June 15. The building used to be a physical therapy office. To convert it, they took out walls, built a bar, brought the restrooms up to ADA standards and turned the front room into a small event space.
The menu is short because there is no kitchen. The bar serves cocktails, mocktails, wine, coffee, tea and soda. The shelves hold new and used books along with gifts for readers. The space is for adults 18 and older. Two rooms can be booked for book clubs, game nights or celebrations, and the owners say small weddings may come "someday soon-ish." Sarah Davison explained the idea by pointing to a gap in local hours. Area indie bookstores often close by 5 or 6 p.m., and she told KSDK she wanted "a place to chill" that stays open later.
Tomes & Tonics had been announced for September 19. St. Louis Public Radio's roundup of September openings includes it, and the shop's website now says "NOW OPEN." A business with no kitchen, no full dinner staff and one room of shelves can run on a small crowd.
A gas station on North Second
Andy Stark and his wife, Stephanie Lai, bought an abandoned former Texaco station in Frenchtown in the fall of 2023. Stark had watched it sit empty on his drive to work. After nearly two years of work, the property is now Bench Racers. It is a food truck garden with a bar, Sugarfire BBQ and a rotating set of trucks. Inside are old car photos and memorabilia, and outside are picnic tables. Local car clubs helped put together many of the chairs, and Stark said all of the building work was kept local.
The setup keeps costs flexible. The food trucks change, the bar stays and the building was already there. Bench Racers is dog-friendly, runs trivia every Wednesday from 7 to 9 p.m., and lets visitors book a "pit slot" online. Stark also chose the spot for its location. "We got the Katy Trail right there people can jump off the Katy Trail," he told First Alert 4. Big Mo's BBQ, owned by Maurice and Claudette Robinson, is just down the street.
Stark is also counting on something beyond his own lot. He told First Alert 4 he hopes the city's plan to connect Frenchtown with Historic Main Street will bring more people down North Second Street. "There's only one way to get there and that's down Second Street," he said. He added that Bench Racers could "act like an overflow" when big Main Street events fill the parking.
The pipe going in under the connection
That plan is now under construction. The city issued a notice to proceed to Keeley Construction for the Main Street Extension on August 24, 2026. According to the city's August departmental report, the contractor has moved in equipment and started demolition. Phase 1A is underground work: a new 12-inch water main and storm sewers running from Clark Street to Climb So Ill. It was scheduled to finish by September 15. Crews would then move on to Phase 2A, which continues the water main and storm sewer work. No public update since then has confirmed whether the September target was met, and no completion date for the full project has been announced.
The final street will be more than a utility job. The design scope published through MoDOT in 2023 runs the extension from Clark Street to Montgomery Street and extends three cross streets from Second Street. It calls for more than a lane-mile of new roadway, sidewalks on both sides, on-street parking and a buffer of pavers and green space. A separate North Second Street project, from Clark to Bayard, is planned to add ADA sidewalks with brick trim, curb bulb-outs, street and pedestrian lighting, rain gardens, benches, bike racks and a transit shelter. It would also extend the Boschert Greenway to the Katy Trail. The North Second project's funding was still listed as unobligated in regional tracking through August 31, 2026, so treat it as planned, not started. A C3 update is on the City Council's work session calendar for November 2026.
Taken together, the Main Street Extension is the city's investment in walkability between two older parts of town. That is the same kind of setting where this fall's small operators chose to open.
Announced but not open yet
Three more small projects are on St. Louis Magazine's September list of fall openings. None had confirmed an opening as of early October.
- Ices Plain & Fancy, 824 N. Second St. This will be a second location of the liquid-nitrogen ice cream shop. A 2025 report named Darla Crask, Max Crask, Troika Brodsky and Matthew Deutschmann as the St. Charles owners. The plan includes made-to-order seasonal and non-dairy flavors plus boozy options. The original end-of-summer 2025 target has moved to this fall.
- Brickstone Kitchen/Backyard Dogs, 720 S. Main St. The business's website still says "Coming Soon."
- Sourdough & Co., 3732 New Town Blvd. This franchise belongs to Leslie Duncan and her son Austin and was expected to open later this fall. Their St. Peters shop at 6121 Mid Rivers Mall Drive opened August 12 and was the brand's first Missouri location.
If Ices opens on schedule, Bench Racers will have a dessert stop on its own block of North Second.
The north end and Main Street, October through December
Historic Main Street's seasonal calendar is also why Stark thinks Frenchtown can catch the overflow. Here are the dates for the rest of 2026:
- Legends & Lanterns: October 10–11, 17–18 and 23–25. Hours are Saturdays 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. and Sundays noon to 5 p.m., with evening hours on Friday, October 23 from 5 to 8 p.m. and on Saturday, October 24 until 8 p.m.
- Pumpkin Glow: October 23–24, 5 to 8 p.m.
- Trick or Treat on Main: Friday, October 30, 3 to 5 p.m.
- Saint Charles Christmas Traditions: November 27 through December 24. Opening Day runs noon to 8:30 p.m. After that, hours are Fridays 6 to 8:30 p.m., Saturdays noon to 8:30 p.m., Sundays noon to 5 p.m. and Christmas Eve 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. This year's Gingerbread Village theme is "Game Night."
- "A Christmas Carol" Stroll: Wednesdays, December 2–23, 6 to 8:30 p.m.
- Santa Send-Off: December 24 at 1:30 p.m. at the Kister Park Gazebo.
The Wednesday Carol Strolls overlap with Bench Racers' Wednesday trivia, which ends at 9 p.m. Tomes & Tonics is open in the evenings, after many bookstores have closed, so it fits a later stop on a Main Street night.
Team Bravo is following the Main Street Extension and the North Second plans as they develop. When the city posts construction updates, or Ices and Brickstone set opening dates, we're glad to share what we learn. If you'd like to talk about what these changes mean for your part of St. Charles, Contact Us.
