As restaurants continue to struggle to service diners in limited-seating dining rooms, they’re coming up with more and more creative ways to feed guests outside.
Every night at Peno in Clayton, Pepe Kehm converts the adjacent parking lot (pictured at right) into casual table seating.
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At Vicia in the Central West End, guests order food and drink, then grab a table under a covered alfresco area, in the grass, or on the meandering sidewalk in front of the restaurant.
At The Capital Grille in Clayton, managing partner Geoff Dill has extended patio seating to include the entire plaza, quadrupling the seating at cloth-covered tables.
At Truffles in Ladue, a carpet of interlocking, rubberized tiles covering the asphalt has reduced the temperature by 10 degrees, according to general manager Aleks Jovanovic.
In Fox Park, at Little Fox, guests eat grab-and-go fare under a tent in a lot across the street.
This week’s most innovative pivot, however, goes to Miguel “Mike” Carretero, owner of Guido’s Pizzeria and Tapas on The Hill.
Beginning this week and continuing every Friday and Saturday afternoon, the restaurant hosts a pop-up pizza party on Shaw Avenue in front of the restaurant.
The star of the show is Il Forno, a custom-made, wood-fired oven on wheels. Several varieties of individual-size, St. Louis–style pizza are made to order and cooked at 540 degrees for five minutes. Although other choices are available, Carretero prefers to top the pies with a blend of mozzarella and Provel, which he says seems to satisfy even Provel naysayers. (In the coming weeks, Neapolitan pies will be offered, which cook in two minutes at 900 degrees.)
Carretero says he’s doing double duty; while providing hot pizza on the fly in a fun environment, he’s also showcasing a mobile kitchen of sorts that can travel just about anywhere. In addition to pizza, Il Forno can turn out Italian and Spanish appetizers and dishes, the same as the restaurant does.
“If a dish can be cooked in or adapted to a wood-burning oven, we can make it happen,” he says.
Il Forno is available for wedding receptions, birthday parties, family dinners, reunions, corporate events, and make-and bake-parties. In the meantime, check out the bright-red contraption on Shaw Avenue on Fridays and Saturdays from 11 a.m.–2 p.m., when a 9-inch pizza and a fountain drink costs $12.
