Kevin A. Roberts
After a two-and-a-half year run at Citygarden in downtown St. Louis, Death in the Afternoon has closed. As the St. Louis Post-Dispatch first reported, owners Adam Frager and T. J. Vytlacil announced the closure just before Thanksgiving.
Earlier this year, the partners sold the members-only Blood & Sand to focus on Brigade Society, a restaurant point-of-sale system that the duo spent three years developing and marketing. The St. Louis-based company is well ahead of projections for 2016, Frager reports; considering that the majority of Brigade’s clients are based in Colorado, renewing Death in the Afternoon’s lease was not in their best interests.
“Despite its success, we knew we’d be traveling more and more, and successful restaurants require a leadership and an ownership presence,” Frager says. “Restaurants can’t be fulfilling if they’re a distraction psychologically.”
Death in the Afternoon was the third restaurant to occupy the all-glass building at 808 Chestnut, located on the northeast corner of Citygarden. It struck a balance between the more upscale Terrace View (owned by Jim Fiala) and the informal Joe’s Chili Bowl (owned by Kim Tucci and Joe Fresta of The Pasta House).
Hoping to help fill a “lack of quality lunch options downtown," Frager told SLM in 2014, Death in the Afternoon took its name from a book by Ernest Hemingway, as well as a cocktail by the same name. “Since the name was both edgy and had a cocktail angle, like Blood & Sand,” Frager told SLM, “it seemed to fit our identity.”
Frager says he has opened several restaurants “but never closed one,” so he deliberated the best way to do so. Some owners announce the closure and schedule a long goodbye (and risk employee attrition during that time), while others abruptly shut the doors with no notice given to anyone (a slight to the employees). Frager chose the middle ground, informing the staff about the closure a few weeks ago, knowing the news would trickle out, to help assure “a soft landing” when the doors closed on November 23.
Determining the best use for the space has been a difficult assignment. If it's to be a restaurant, it must simultaneously appeal to the downtown lunch crowd, locals visiting the sculpture garden, and tourists of all stripes. A representative for the Gateway Foundation, the cultural organization that operates Citygarden, tells SLM that it is in discussions with several unnamed groups and hopes to have a new tenant operational by spring.
