It’s been an eventful year for Andy and Dee Dee Kohn, husband-and-wife owners of Edgewild Restaurant Group. After undergoing seven months of dialysis, Andy received a kidney transplant this year, and his recovery is going well. At the same time, on the heels of the COVID-19 pandemic, the group’s three restaurants, like many others in the region, have struggled.
Today, the Kohns announced on Facebook that two of their restaurant locations, Edgewild Bistro & Tap (12316 Olive) and Edgewild Edwardsville (1071 State Route 157), will close after service on November 28.
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“With the latest surge and closures, the fight for these two locations is at an end,” the Facebook post reads in part. “Our heart goes out to all of the associates, who are our family, which will be without work during these unprecedentedly trying times.”
The flagship location, the 10,000-square-foot Edgewild Restaurant & Winery in Chesterfield (550 Chesterfield Center), will remain open. In addition to offering a standard wine list, the restaurant/winery distinguishes itself by bottling varietals from California, Oregon, and Washington under its own label. In 2016, readers of USA Today voted Edgewild the #10 “Best Winery Restaurant” in the country.
Reopening the three restaurants was an uphill battle after the temporary closures in March, says Andy: “Before the PPP money materialized, we had to invest six figures just to keep the doors open. Since June, we were doing 35 percent of normal sales. August and September saw an uptick, and we began to book reservations for Thanksgiving, like we normally do, and then the bottom fell out and people started cancelling. In Chesterfield, for example, 700 people became 100, all of them on the patio. After we confirmed them all and prepped and staffed for that amount, less than half of them bothered to show up. It’s been frustrating.
“We lost Mother’s Day, we lost Easter, and then we pretty much lost Thanksgiving,” he continues. “We thought things might come back in the fall, then the holiday parties we had began to cancel, and the county shut down indoor dining.”
Under normal circumstances, he says, the Creve Coeur location was sustainable, while he characterized the bulk of business at the Edwardsville location, which opened in mid-2018, as “weekends only.” Despite the downward spiral, Kohn says he honored all leases to the letter and will honor all outstanding vendor obligations.
“At our peak, we had almost 200 employees, which dwindled to 100,” says Kohn. In order to keep the Chesterfield location open, only 30 have been retained, he says. Kohn hopes to be able to hand the keys to operating partner Mary Beth Lacy and executive chef Aaron Baggett.
“Edgewild was a labor of love,” he says. “I hope it’s not gone forever, but it has to be forever for me.”
