Honey Bee’s Biscuits + Good Eats opening in Kirkwood on October 8

Mike and Meredith Shadwick parlayed a popular comfort food into a farmers' market success story, quickly doubled down with a food truck—then another—and are now opening a brick-and-mortar.

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After months of delays, Honey Bee’s Biscuits & Good Eats (200 N. Kirkwood) will open this Saturday, October 8.

Initially, the restaurant will serve a limited menu and have limited hours, including 8 a.m.–noon this Saturday and Sunday. The restaurant will also open on Fridays beginning next week, followed by Thursdays. Eventually, hours will be expanded from 7 a.m.–2 p.m. 

Owners Mike and Meredith Shadwick, who also own Kirkwood snow-cone staple Tropical Moose, began selling biscuits at farmers' markets, bought a food truck, and then another. The location in Kirkwood marks their first brick-and-mortar location. 

THE SPACE

Honey Bee’s is located at the corner of Kirkwood Road and Jefferson Avenue, in the space previously occupied by Club Taco. The exterior is painted black and white with awnings to match. The owners “focused on the kitchen and the exterior initially,” Meredith says, “purposefully keeping the customer area as a clean slate, so it can be set up for limited seating or no seating, for example.” Orders are placed at a honey-colored counter, with seating on the 100-seat patio.

“Our plans are to adapt to the wishes of the customer and see what works,” Michael adds, “including possibly using the existing pick-up window. “This winter, we plan to ramp up our catering operation and also ease into in-house delivery,” Mike says.

THE FOOD

The inaugural menu for opening weekend is small, for efficiency’s sake, Mike says, “back to our roots,” which means honey glazed biscuits, three types of gravy (two of them vegetarian), plus scrambled egg and cheese biscuit “sammies” (with the option to add a sausage patty), as well as The Hive, which is any sammie with a gravy on top. Add-ons include ham, honey butter, Red Hot Riplets, green onions, and house aioli. “We’ll add to that menu when we know we can,” Mike says, adding that “specialty biscuits and a soft scrambled egg, arugula, and tomato salad will be the first items we add.”

Maplewood-based LC Coffee Roasters (formerly La Cosecha Coffee) curated the coffee program. For the launch, the coffee menu includes drip coffee and cold brew, with the option to add house-made syrups, including pumpkin spice. “LC roasts the beans on Friday; we grind and sell the coffee on Saturday,” Michael says.

THE TIMEFRAME

The brick-and-mortar opening coincides with the ramping down of the farmers' market season. “We had the capacity to stay open at Tower Grove [Farmers’ Market] until they close in early November,” Michael says, “but we didn’t want any of our employees to miss out on the opening in Kirkwood, since this is the goal we’ve all been working toward. We thought it would be good to experience the first month together, as a group.”

Initially, the restaurant was slated to open in May. So what took so long? 

“So many different things,” says Meredith.

“Major—and unexpected—flooring issues that took a long time to correct,” Michael adds. “After the heavy rains this summer, the roof leaked in several places, one that came through the hood and affected some cooking equipment. The grease trap had to be replaced—which there was no way to anticipate—and that took a full month just to get delivered. I joked with the contractors, ‘Although we’re not doing that much, we’re sure doing a lot.’”

THE OWNERS

SLM discussed the genesis of the project with the Shadwicks earlier this year. They met on Bumble, slather their mile-high biscuits with honey, encourage humanity to bee kind, and emphatically bee-lieve in following one's passion in life. The duo parlayed a popular comfort food into a farmers market success story, quickly doubled down with a food truck—then another—and are opening a brick-and-mortar, where specialties will include a sugar-crusted blueberry biscuit topped with sausage gravy.

What spurred your interest in cooking?

Meredith: Mike’s first word was “eat.” There’s a video of him with jars of baby food lined up, and he’s going, “Eat, eat, eat.” His dad is saying, “Mike, we’ve already been through four jars,” and Mike keeps saying, “Eat, eat, eat.” Mike: All true.

Once you began cooking, what was your specialty?

Mike: Eggs. I’d cook them for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. My favorite was French-style, soft scrambled eggs, where you start them in a hot pan and then turn off the heat, letting the pan cool as the eggs cook. Then you stir constantly through the reduction while adding back a little heat. Just as they firm up, I add in some cream cheese, a soft cheese, sour cream, anything cold, then take them off heat to finish cooking. I don’t like grated cheeses with eggs, unless I do a harder scramble.

Meredith, did you ever think you’d get into the restaurant business?

Meredith: When I was an adult, no, but I recently found an “about me” booklet from when I was in sixth grade, where I’d written that I would own the most famous restaurant in New York City. I had forgotten all about that. Mike: We’re starting that process slowly, in Kirkwood, with biscuits.

Did either of you work in restaurants in high school or college?

Meredith: In high school, my first job was working at Tropical Moose here in Kirkwood. Ironically, we ended up buying it from Pat and Jack Williams—who also own the Walk Away Waffles food truck—last year. There are two locations—at Kirkwood Farmers’ Market and in Kirkwood Park—and we’re hoping to add a third. The recipes are still the same. All we did was change the logo. Mike: I didn’t have a restaurant job until I started working for Imo’s, first as a delivery driver—which was a good job to have during the pandemic—then began working there as a manager. I loved Imo's; I love the restaurant business.

Was breakfast food always your thing?

Meredith: When we were dating, where other couples would go out to dinner, we’d go out for breakfast or Mike would make breakfast. His sausage gravy is the absolute best. Mike: You have to know both the ingredients and the science behind it to replicate it, which is why most people can’t. Even so-called “good cooks” say they can’t duplicate it. Meredith: Mike’s sausage gravy is what started this whole process. It’s why we made the biscuits the way they are. The outside is crusty, and the inside is fluffy and airy, so anything you put there gets quickly absorbed, which is why we leave the biscuits whole.

Do you ever top them with Mike’s Hot Honey?

Mike: My mom gave us a squeeze bottle of that one year. Good stuff. Meredith: Actually, she gave it to me, joking that I was Mike’s Hot Honey. Mike: Plus, we met on Bumble six years ago, so we’ve been getting bee-themed gifts from people ever since. 

So that’s how the honey-glazed-biscuits idea took shape?

Mike: First, it’s hard to find a good biscuits and gravy around town. A lot of places serve them, but no one branded their biscuits—no place focused on them. It was the one item that St. Louis lacked and the one thing that I know I wouldn’t mind cooking every day, so we experimented with a booth at the Kirkwood Farmers’ Market selling biscuits that we made at Creative Cookery [a commissary kitchen in Fenton] to test what we thought was a good idea. I used up all my Imo’s tip money to buy the equipment. 

You had a killer gravy recipe, but what about the biscuits?  

Meredith: I made the first biscuits from a mix, circular ones that I punched out. Mike: I didn’t make my first biscuit until 2020. It might be the Imo’s side of me, but I decided to cut mine in squares, which gave us the crunchy-edged texture that we wanted. They worked better for sandwiches, and I could cut them in triangles, which presented well.

What’s the secret to a good biscuit?

Mike: Besides a lot of love, the answer is proper proportions of the core ingredients, cold butter added throughout the dough, and a highly acidic milk, which interacts with the fat to produce the desired rise. So tall biscuits like ours require a lot of fat and high acid. The only way to do that right is to make your own buttermilk using pure whole milk and a high-acid vinegar. 

How did the name come about? 

Meredith: There was the Bumble connection, and the specialty was sausage gravy and a honey-glazed biscuit, so the first name was Honey Bee’s Biscuits + Gravy. When we started making sandwiches, that name didn’t makes sense, so we changed the recipe to work better with sandwiches and changed the name to Honey Bee’s Biscuits + Good Eats. 

How did you spread the word?

Mike: Gaining confidence at the Kirkwood Farmers’ Market, we bought a food trailer that had onboard cooking and then a van, which we used to sell premade sandwiches. Neither was the traditional box food truck, per se. Meredith: When the pandemic hit, there was a resurgence in the popularity of food trucks. We didn’t want to miss that wave. 

Do you offer specials?

Meredith: We’ve done a pretzel biscuit, one with a garlic glaze and everything seasoning, a hot cocoa biscuit, a red velvet for Valentine’s Day, and a corned beef biscuit for St. Paddy’s Day. My favorite is a blueberry biscuit with sausage gravy on top that’s good as a sandwich, too. We did one with candied bacon and Havarti on a chocolate chip biscuit that we called “Six Degrees of Candied Bacon.” Mike: My favorite has prosciutto, Genoa salami, and sliced turkey—my three favorite lunch meats—with roasted garlic aioli on an everything-seasoned biscuit with Gruyère and arugula. It might sound weird, but deli meat goes really well on a biscuit. 

What’s on the menu at the brick-and-mortar?

Meredith: Once we get established, the base menu will have nine core items—biscuits, gravies, and a weekly, seasonal special item. We'll have a pastry case with brownies, cinnamon rolls, and what we call Biscuit Bombs, which is biscuit dough stuffed with one of our gravies or chili. Even jam bombs work. Mike: And they’re big—they weigh the same as our biscuits.  

What are the hours? 

Meredith: We're eventually shooting for 7 a.m. to 2 p.m. Wednesday through Sunday, which leaves evenings for production, events, and pop-ups. Mike: Every Friday and Saturday we hope to have a food truck—one that doesn’t have a brick-and-mortar—serving food here, which will give them a platform to try out dine-in service, as well as bring all kinds of new food to Kirkwood. They would sell the food. We’d be responsible for the beverages and desserts, such as the Lucky Charms biscuit ice cream sandwich that I’ve been working on.

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