With six restaurants across the St. Louis metro area, the Napoli Group is becoming even more of a powerhouse name in Italian dining. And come next spring, the restaurant group will add a new concept to its portfolio: a gelato and Italian pastry shop.
Located next door to Napoli Bros. Pizza and Pasta, at 17089 N. Outer 40 Road in The District, the yet-to-be-named shop will offer gelato, Italian pastries, and house-made bread and will serve as a commissary space for the six Napoli restaurants across the St. Louis metro area, including in Kirkwood, St. Charles, and Town & Country.
Here’s what we know about the project, slated to open in late spring 2026.
The Background
To oversee the new gelato and sweets shop, the Pietoso family—including brothers Kye and Ande, their father, Tony, and their mother, Kathy—have brought on pastry chef Meaghan Coltrain, who joined the Napoli Group in early December. Coltrain has a long, impressive pastry career in St. Louis, having previously worked as executive pastry chef at Gerard Craft’s Niche Food Group, as well as executive pastry chef at the Missouri Athletic Club and Bellerive Country Club.
Kye stresses that Coltrain has full creative license at the new shop, and she’s excited to bring her experience gained working with Italian flavors at restaurants such as Pastaria to the new concept and the wider restaurant group. “The flavors are all very rich and very good, pure ingredients,” she says. “Gelato is probably my favorite thing to make; you can do so many different things with it, from classic flavors to more exciting touches.”
With that said, in addition to launching a new menu at the shop, Coltrain plans to reinvent the dessert program at the various Napoli restaurants. The large commissary kitchen at the new location will allow Coltrain to make desserts, as well as a new signature Napoli Group bread for each of the group’s restaurants.
The Menu
The new shop will serve approximately 18 flavors of gelato, including classics such as pistachio and cherry, as well as kid-friendly options with sprinkles. In addition to gelato, expect classic Italian pastries and cookies, as well as fresh bread and a few sandwiches and paninis. In a nod to the family’s heritage, Italian classics will be the main focus—think pastries such as sfogliatella, a traditional laminated pastry that originated in Napoli, Italy, and features a flaky layered shell filled with ricotta.
Coltrain will also take advantage of the expansive commissary kitchen to create new desserts tailored to each of the Napoli restaurants. Beyond the restaurants’ tiramisu and crème brûlée, desserts have previously been outsourced, but Coltrain will add new house-made desserts to each menu. She’s recently been running specials to experiment with different flavor profiles, such as a play on Italian sipping chocolate featuring pistachio semifreddo with pour-over hot chocolate served with an Italian wedding cookie on the side, as well as a gianduia torte with morello cherry sauce and gelato.
“With the desserts, we wanted to focus on bringing in the family history and focusing on each restaurant’s different clientele,” Coltrain says. “We’re really honing in on those classic Italian flavors. I think it boils down to wanting to bring dessert in-house for the purpose of uniting the restaurant group and creating a sense of cohesiveness from the beginning of the meal to the very end.”
The Space
The shop’s footprint is relatively small—about 600 square feet in front—but it boasts 2,100 square feet of space in back that will be used as a commissary kitchen to produce bread and desserts for the group’s other concepts. Guests can grab a seat at one of a few tables in the space or on the patio, but the shop is primarily designed for grab-and-go service, particularly since it’s located near The Hub, an expansive central outdoor area with a pavilion, LED screen, stage, and turf. Coltrain says the group has started discussing ways to take advantage of the family-friendly outdoor space, such as offering picnic baskets.
“We’re using the storefront to service The District, and we’re going to utilize as much space as we can in the green area to make sure that we have good volume in the summertime,” Kye says. “It’s definitely kid-friendly, and it’s missing ice cream, for sure. We think gelato is a good fit for this specific area because of the foot traffic and the green area, which is really fun in the summertime, with a lot of kids running around.”
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