In December, EdgeWild Restaurant & Winery was close enough to making a deal for 7500 square feet of the former Busch's Grove space that a June 2013 date was projected for the opening date of their second restaurant. Several publications announced the news. Early this month, Relish learned from EdgeWild's owner, Andy Kohn, that negotiations were in fact still ongoing with the Cella family, who owns the property at 9160 Clayton Road, and a lease had not been signed.
This afternoon, St. Louis Business Journal reported that the parties were indeed unable to come to terms, and the Cella family "remain anxious to talk to people who might have an interest in becoming tenants there..." He added that the space "could turn into a wonderful retail center with the appropriate mix of tenants."
Since Busch's closed in late 2010, several parties--some restaurants, some not--have shown interest in the property, but Kohn's EdgeWild group seemed the most likely suitor--and still might be.
Kohn told Relish this afternoon that "the lease terms were reasonable, but the build-out was far more than we expected," even though the same contractor had bid the job before for another party and "the bid for EdgeWild was several hundred thousand dollars less...and it still didn't work." The former state-of-the-art kitchen at Busch's was gutted, necessitating starting almost from scratch. Kohn then expounded with a story familiar to anyone who's ever retrofitted a restaurant: "Ironically, because the Bahama Breeze space was more complete initially, the first EdgeWild cost us 2/3 less than the projections at Busch's, even though Bahama was nearly twice the size. That's a problem."
Yet Kohn remains optimistic. "We all acted in good faith and left the table amicably," he said, as he cracked open the door. "We're currently looking at other opportunities but still hope we can somehow come to terms for that space. We're still interested."
