Photo by Sara Kaiman
Good news for caffeine-craving Saint Louis University students: a Kaldi's Coffee location will open at the corner of Laclede and Vandeventer on Saturday, February 4.
It will be the seventh Kaldi's in St. Louis, and the first one to open in over 2 years. The new location has taken over a formerly vacant corner building a few blocks from IKEA, next to Narwhal's Crafted Urban Ice and the newest location of Yiro/Gyro.
"We had been looking at [the building] for two years," says Kaldi's owner Tricia Zimmer Ferguson. "Part of it was just we wanted another store in the city. We love being close to the universities, because it's a big part of our business." She adds that it's the closest location to the Kaldi's roastery, also in Midtown. "We love the history and character of this building too."
Photo by Sara Kaiman
Photo by Sara Kaiman
The building, which is on St. Louis City's National Register of Historic Places as the Gerhart Block, has been transformed on the inside by SPACE Architecture + Design. Guests will find wood floors and a large black, tufted banquette filling up one corner of the 2,200-square-foot space.
"It doesn't look like our other stores," Zimmer Ferguson says, adding: "I don't like every store to be the same. Every one fits into neighborhoods, which I think is important, so it doesn't feel too cookie-cutter."
Fun features include a bar with stools for Firepot tea-on-tap and nitro cold brew coffee, a feature that will eventually be at all Kaldi's locations. The menu includes flatbreads, a walnut avocado salad, and a basil avocado sandwich. A new update comes in the form of a selection of smoothies. (Don't leave without trying the pineapple kale smoothie, made with pineapple, baby kale, apple juice, chia seeds, and "a pinch of cayenne.")
Photo by Sara Kaiman
Photo by Sara Kaiman
Culinary director Frank McGinty says they've added certain touches to the menu—dressings and jams made in-house, local partnerships, seasonal specials—to match the quality of the coffee program.
"We wanted to close the gap a little between coffee and the quality of our food, but never overtake coffee, because it's who we are," he says.
The Gerhart Kaldi's (3900 Laclede, Suite 1) will open Saturday, February 4 at 7 a.m. Regular hours will be Monday through Friday 6 a.m.–10 p.m. and Saturday and Sunday 7 a.m. to 10 p.m.
