Who is Eat Here St. Louis?

Eat Here St. Louis, LLC is a business born on April 1, 2008.  So far, it’s a one-man show – me, Andy Ayers. 

I spent the past 28 years in the restaurant business with my wife, Paula.  In 1980 we opened the miniature Riddle’s Restaurant at 8418 Natural Bridge near the UMSL campus in Bel Nor and made a small success of that little seven-table operation.  It was here, long before Local became Cool, that we began serving the Homegrown Tomato Salad every summer.  It recreated the platter of big, thick, juicy homegrown tomato slices with green pepper rings from our home garden that my mom made every year during the season all through my childhood.  We started sourcing more and more ingredients locally.

In 1985 we transformed to Riddle’s Penultimate Café & Wine Bar, moving to 6307 Delmar in the exciting University City Loop.  We were the first “wine bar” in St. Louis, serving premium, cork-finished wines by the glass at a time when even “fine dining” wine by the glass (or by the liter) consisted of three flavors - red, white or rosé from a jug. 

We operated Riddle’s in the Loop, and had a dandy time at it, for over 20 years before Paula and I sold the restaurant to our daughter, KT, who operates it today.  KT grew up in the restaurant business and had been sous chef at Riddle’s.  She has carried on the family traditions of live music, excellent wine and immediately delicious food made with fresh, locally grown ingredients.

During my career as a restaurateur and chef, I found that old time varieties, unsuited for industrial farming, raised and harvested by hand right before I used them improved the quality of my menu.  And I noticed that something felt especially right about putting the money directly in the hand of the person who grew the food that I would prepare and serve to my guests.  Eventually we began printing the entire menu fresh each day so that we could take advantage of whatever was local and seasonal.  We printed the names of the growers in the menu right along with the description of each preparation.

I started Eat Here St. Louis with the goal of helping St. Louis access local food. 

There has been a tremendous nationwide upsurge of interest in eating local.  The New Oxford American Dictionary chose as their New Word of the Year 2007 the word “locavore”.  The explosion of farmers markets around St. Louis has increased consumer interest and helped to revive the flagging market for local, small scale growers of produce, meats, eggs and cheese.

I knew there were chefs who wanted to do more local sourcing but didn’t have the contacts I had developed or the time to pursue them.  And I knew growers who did their best to both produce and market exceptionally high quality edibles but found that the “marketing” part robbed time they really needed to devote to production.  So I decided to see it I could step into the breech.

My job is to help growers in the bi-state Missouri and Illinois region, particularly those in a 100 mile radius of St. Louis, to market their products and to help chefs find and use the exceptional quality food products that come from this part of the country.  I believe that Eat Here St. Louis can add value to both halves of that equation.

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