“You are not coming to a Lampert operation to order pine nuts and lawn clippings with a persimmon aioli. No! You’re not gonna do it.”
That’s Larry Lampert—seasoned veteran to the food business since the mid-1980s—speaking about the fare at the aptly named Red Shack, which very suddenly shut down its operation on McCausland “due to circumstances beyond our control,” said the March 3rd Facebook post.
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But now Larry (who’s technically retired) and his daughter Angie are working on a revived iteration of The Red Shack on West Park and Tamm in Dogtown set to open this spring and will serve the “best Tex Mex in St. Louis,” according to the website.
The first Red Shack, also known as Q Shack at one point, initially opened in August 2014 and offered both BBQ and Tex-Mex, but Lampert sees a real opportunity in “going Hispanic” and not offering hamburgers and French fries like the other area businesses.
“I’ve seen concepts come and go,” he says. “I was in pizza before Domino’s and subs before Subway. BBQ is a good run, but everyone and their brother is into BBQ.”
Open Monday–Saturday with hours yet to be determined (and open year-round unlike the previous Red Shack), the menu will include tacos (fish and otherwise), burritos, enchiladas, quesadillas, nachos, tamales, tortas, and habanero hardboiled eggs. He says the fare is a “considerable step up from a place like Taco Bell” and will begin to branch out to gyro or BBQ burritos once they have the base menu solidified.
“We’re here to have fun and to give the customer a reasonable product at a reasonable price. I am not out to reinvent the wheel.”
Initially there were murmurs that it would stay open until 4 a.m. on the weekend, but Larry says the reaction from Dogtown neighbors wasn’t all that positive.
“I agree with them—they don’t want people hanging out at four in the morning. And drunks who drink too much have to relieve themselves,” Larry explains. “At this point, we don’t need to go there. We are a good, old-fashioned place.”
