One of St. Louis’ most revered pizza joints has a new owner with a familiar name. Kevin McKernan—founder of The Improv Shop and owner of Epiphany Lanes, Donut Drive-In, and Donut Drive- Up—recently acquired Blackthorn Pub and Pizza (3735 Wyoming), the South Side pizzeria known for its deep-dish pies, as well as the building it’s called home since 1986. McKernan has a few tweaks in mind, but he says the overarching goal is for “people to not ever realize that it had been sold.” Here’s what to know before you go.
The Plan
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“The first order of business was making sure Blackthorn exists,” McKernan says, “and that it remains in business the same way that everybody remembers.”
Next, he asked himself exactly what people love and not love about this place. The answer to the latter was “no delivery,” so he’s making arrangements for its signature deep-dish pies to be available via third-party delivery.
For McKernan and many others, Blackthorn was the first St. Louis restaurant where he experienced deep-dish pizza. “And you get a good bang for your pizza buck, compared to other thin-crust pizza places,” he says.
McKernan is planning minor improvements, “not changing what’s already there but having fun around the edges,” he says, such as adding more beer options, salads, and a milder alternative to the spicy, heavily herbed pizza sauce, which doesn’t agree with all palates. There’s also an unused party room upstairs with its own bar, which will become a rentable space for 40–50 people.
The rest of the atmosphere will largely remain the same. To McKernan, Blackthorn is a great neighborhood hangout, with shuffleboard, pinball, and a nice patio out front, “a place to eat a great pizza, drink a few beers, and talk to somebody. If we’re going to save the city or the country, we’re going to have to find things we like about one another.”
The Backstory
Dave Difani opened Blackthorn in 1986. When McKernan discovered that Difani was considering retirement, he put together a deal to purchase the building and the business.
McKernan thought his brother-in-law, “a young guy in his late 20s,” might be the perfect person to bring on board and manage the business, which is exactly what happened. Frank Tejera is now running the restaurant.
McKernan admits to having an interest–“maybe an obsession”–in small neighborhood businesses “that you don’t see much of anymore, the kinds of places that have slowly disappeared. And this one happens to serve the kind of pizza I loved as a young adult,” he says. “It’s part of what was great about me growing up in St. Louis. The vibe of those places stuck in the middle of the neighborhood is irreplaceable, and I feel we need to preserve the ones we have.
“In a corny, sentimental way, I feel weirdly obligated to do that,” he adds. “We all need those touchstone types of places, like Blackthorn, where we can get out of our houses, away from our screens, and enjoy something that we’re proud of. Those things matter more than we know.”
Hear Sarah Fenske’s interview with McKernan on The 314 Podcast.
