Momo (9500 Manchester), the self-described “coffee-champagne-kitchen” located on the southwest corner of Manchester and Rock Hill, has closed after just over two years in operation. The last day of service was July 20. A new tenant is expected to take over the space next month.”
The closing was not announced on Momo’s website or social media, but it was telegraphed by a comprehensive restaurant furniture and kitchen equipment sale posted to Facebook and Facebook Marketplace earlier this week.
The Owners
The owners are Chris and Courtney Sedlak, who also own The Mud House on Cherokee and Hangar Kitchen + Bar, which shares a large patio and outdoor space with Momo. Reached by phone yesterday, Chris confirmed the closure, adding that “Momo’s was doing fine; sales were fine,” but running three operations had taken its toll on him and his wife.
He reminded SLM that Momo’s was conceived with an accomplished operating partner, who had extensive experience in a local breakfast-and-lunch restaurant, but the arrangement fell apart one week before opening. “Courtney and I had no choice but to proceed without him,” Chris says, “opening Momo early in the day, then moving across the patio to open Hangar for dinner, and getting over to The Mud House when we could.”
The Sedlaks had difficulty finding quality managers for Momo, which became the Achilles’ heel. “The biggest problem in the local restaurant market, in my opinion, is management,” he says. “During, after, and even before [the pandemic], many of the good managers were taking other jobs out of the industry. The hourly workers came back to a certain degree and have continued to. But when my upper-management guys told me they found a job that pays $100,000 more than what we could afford to pay, I had to say, ‘Go for it. I wish you well.’
“A lot of the management that’s left is not qualified or burned out,” he adds. “It’s not an easy job, even for the people who are qualified.”
The owners were essentially forced to work around the clock. “But you can only work seven days a week at multiple places until it takes its toll,” Chris says. “So we let the landlord know if he could find someone for the Momo space, we’d be happy to give it up, which happened only recently. A new tenant will take over the space in August.
“But it’s good,” he adds. “We’re equal parts happy and relieved.”
The Background
In early 2019, the Sedlaks bought the former Slider House space in Rock Hill and opened the airplane hangar–themed Hangar in its place a year later. The couple was passionate about breakfast and coffee and wanted to get into that business as well. So at roughly the same time, they bought The Mud House, the popular Cherokee Street coffee shop.
When the Bandana’s Bar-B-Q location next door to Hangar closed, the Sedlaks thought a breakfast-and-lunch concept would complement the dinner-only Hangar. “Besides breakfast being the most underserved market in St. Louis, we wouldn’t have to compete for parking,” Chris reasoned. “Despite the current difficulties in the industry, we decided to proceed.”
Momo’s tag line is “coffee-champagne-kitchen,” which the Sedlaks believe are “the hallmarks of a really fun brunch.” (Momo is the coffee roasting company owned by the Sedlaks and the tie in to The Mud House.) Momo’s food menu consisted of recognizable with unique touches, such as a BLT (made with housemade tomato jam instead of tomatoes) and a Fresh Berry Grilled Cheese (made with Brie, Fontina, berry compote, caramelized onions and local honey).
The whimsical décor included a roomful of wicker basket lights, hung at different levels, as well as settee booths, heavy duty plastic wicker chairs, and a deep-button, Chesterfield-style leather banquette that ran the length of the dining room. A small front patio catered to the grab-and-go, eat-on-the-run crowd, while a larger rear patio (adjacent to the one at Hangar) was designed for more leisurely dining.
At the outset, Courtney said, “The whole place is fun. It makes people smile. That’s the whole idea.”
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