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We suspect the 12-inch snowfall had something to do with it.
Evan Benn, Food Critic and Beer Columnist for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, tendered his resignation Monday, March 25. His last day at the P-D will be April 18.
Benn and wife Teri will be moving back to Miami: his wife, an OB/GYN in residency in St. Louis, has accepted a medical fellowship there and Benn will return to his roots, The Miami Herald, where he first interned, then worked for 5 years as Staff Writer before moving to St. Louis in 2009.
Benn’s introduction into the St. Louis dining scene happened almost by chance, accepting the P-D’s suddenly-vacant Beer Editor’s job before he’d collected his first paycheck. By his own admission, he knew little about beer at the time, but in three years became the city’s go-to guy for beer news, put HipHops (the P-D’s beer blog) on the national map, became online beer columnist for Esquire.com, and wrote Brew in the Lou: St. Louis’ Beer Culture, Past, Present & Future.
I suspect his superiors knew they had a rainmaker on their hands when in July 2012 asked him to be the P-D’s Food Critic, no doubt hoping lightning could strike twice on N. Tucker Blvd. If my opinion counts, Benn has done a stellar freshman job there as well, not afraid to dole out a single star review nor award a superlative four star.
Benn assimilated quickly and rapidly became “one of us,“ with an approachability and likability that could open many a closed door, and (says the reporter who was often scheming for the same story), many a closed mouth.
Opening his mouth, literally, he was responsible for a $25 double-stack sandwich at The Shack--Evan Benn's Death Row Challenge--one that he admittedly could not get even close to finishing (SLM contributor Andrew Mark Veety called it "a weak attempt...he spread that sandwich around the plate like my kid does with his peas").
I didn’t connect any dots when Benn covered the South Beach Wine & Food Festival last month (his posts appeared in the Herald here), but in retrospect, the Herald may have been dangling a rather irresistible carrot.
Doesn’t matter.
St. Louis has lost a budding writer and I (spatially, anyway) a colleague and a good friend. I now have good reason to visit Miami...and it'll have nothing to do with a foot of snow in March.
I mentioned in this article that Benn stepped into some rather large shoes when he replaced Joe Bonwich as the P-D's Dining Editor. So now what happens? As Benn’s notice was given only yesterday, it’s doubtful any decisions have been made. My vote would be to give the job back to Bonwich, as only a handful of writers in this town knows what he knows about food/restaurants and can communicate it so effectively. And it’s a shame his reviewing pen has been idle for this long.
