The owners of Guerrilla Street Food announced on Tuesday that they would be closing two of its five locations. The Maryland Heights location (11658 Dorsett) closed January 31, and the flagship brick-and-mortar space (3559 Arsenal) will close on February 9, according to co-owner Brian Hardesty.
In a statement, the duo said that “many contributing factors led to this outcome but above all, it has been our choices as owners.”
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Hardesty told SLM that the decision to close the flagship store, while not an easy one, was in part because the lease was up in April, and the building was scheduled for repairs. Speaking with Ian Froeb of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, which was first to report the news earlier, Hardesty also said it was a combination of “overextending ourselves, and maybe we expanded too quickly.”
And expand they did. The concept was launched from a food truck in 2011. By many estimates, it was one of the most popular food trucks in St. Louis. Many St. Louisans were introduced to Filipino food (including chicken adobo, pancit, sinigang, and halo-halo) thanks to the efforts of Hardesty and co-owner Joel Crespo.
Parlaying the success of the truck, the duo opened the flagship brick-and-mortar on South Grand in 2015. Expansion went into high gear beginning in 2018, when locations followed in the East Loop, inside 2nd Shift Brewing, inside Tropical Liqueurs in the Grove (closed in November 2018), inside Two Plumbers Brewery + Arcade in St. Charles (closed in December 2019), a grab-and-go location in Maryland Heights, and the long-awaited store in Webster Groves that opened last month. That’s six additional locations opening in a two-year period, an aggressive model for any business, restaurant or otherwise.
While it’s to be expected that not all locations would be equally successful, Hardesty told SLM that “sales at some of them have been well below projections,” which prompted the partners to “make adjustments to try to absorb the disappointment.”
The strongest operations, according to Hardesty, appear to be the counter at 2nd Shift Brewery and the newly opened location in Webster Groves. Both will remain open, as will the store in the East Loop (although the partners would entertain a sublessee). In the meantime, the partners will continue to work that location personally. “Having both owners under the same roof is never a bad thing,” Hardesty says.
If all goes well, the Delmar location will stay open, Hardesty adds, and the food truck will resume operations in the spring. Hardesty expects the pickup and delivery segments (currently 40 percent of Guerrilla Street Food’s business) to continue to increase.
Regarding any future local expansion, the partners will be overly cautious expanding in St. Louis. “We are now aware of oversaturating the GSF fandom,” admits Hardesty, who says expanding beyond the St. Louis metro area is a possibility.
