Molly's in Soulard Reboots and Retools, Now Bigger and Better Than Ever

Mitch Nidiffer was among the first to set foot into Molly’s in Soulard. He filled out an application for a summer job when the storied restaurant expanded into Norton's space seven years ago. And he never left.

“I know this building like the back of my hand,” he says, rounding the corner. “This used to be a dingy old room with eight foot ceilings and a falling wall.”

That dingy old room with a crumbling wall looks decidedly different now.

The formerly eight foot ceilings have all but doubled in height. Skylights and an open back wall give off an outdoor vibe without taking away from the beauty of climate control in a St. Louis summer (or winter). And the falling wall – now a sturdy exposed brick beauty decorated with massive photographs and punctuated by restored wood beams, collected over the years by owner Luke Reynolds.

“It’s hard to build a place in the middle of your restaurant,” Reynolds says. “But we did it.”

That they did. The year-long overhaul welcomed its first guests in August.

“We fell behind schedule a little bit,” Reynolds admits. “We had a sign up through this summer that read, ‘Opening Fall 2015.’”

But the result, he says, was well worth the patience.

In addition to the patio itself, the sometimes treacherous cobblestone patio got an update. Marble pavers, leftover from those used to line the area around the St. Louis Art Museum, rest beneath the new bar stools.

But the building wasn’t the only renovation project.

The menu, fresh off the presses, features a litany of novel offerings, courtesy of the culinary imagination of recently named executive chef, Brandon Busby.

“I haven’t taken a day off since we started,” Busby says, a giant plate of Brussels sprouts in one hand, a spinach salad in the other. “But I love it.”

The new menu features some expected favorites, like gumbo, though with a signature twist.

With prior stints at Copper Pig, The Shaved Duck, and Evangeline’s on his resume, Busby has made Molly’s gumbo his own. The price has gone from 8 to 13 dollars a bowl ($7 for a cup), but now features duck and generous cuts of handmade Andouille, sourced from Schubert’s Smokehouse in Millstadt.

He’s updated some other classics, like the Brussels sprouts.

“I didn’t think they could get any better,” Nidiffer says. “But these? These are even better than before.”

Bacon (or pork lardons, in this case) does, indeed, make everything better.

“The biggest challenge is trying to find a theme,” Busby (right, with Brussels sprouts) says of his new gig.

The diverse menu, which includes a light but flavorful spinach salad (with house candied pecans), duck tacos (Busby’s personal favorite) and po’boys, reflects the debate.

“We trialed a lot of these dishes in the last month. The response has been good.”

But now, he’s looking to diners’ daily ordering habits to help decide the direction.

“Are we a Cajun restaurant or a giant bar with a cook shack?”

For years Molly’s has known their bread and butter clientele: pre-gamers who appreciate the shuttle to Busch stadium, Mardi Gras devotees, and a college crowd patronizing one of the seven (7!) bars on the restaurant’s acre sprawl.

“We have a lot of 30^th birthday parties around here,” Reynolds says with smile.

Now, with a few extra chairs (the patio seating has nearly doubled capacity) and a menu to attract diners as much as drinkers, Molly’s is staged to host a few more parties – and a few more decades.