After more than a year in pause mode, Small Batch, one of a handful of vegetarian restaurants in the metro area, reopens today at 4 p.m.
“We could have opened a little earlier, but we were waiting on the Grand Center theater district to reopen,” says co-owner Dave Bailey.
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Located on two floors of an early 20th century automotive dealership on a section of Locust Street formerly known as Automotive Row, Small Batch distinguishes itself by offering a vegetarian menu paired with small-production American whiskeys and bourbons.
Chef Jerremy Kirby, a three-year veteran of Baileys’ Restaurants, has written a menu that combines longtime Small Batch favorites, such as pad thai, khao soi, and rigatoni (pictured at right), with new vegan and vegetarian offerings that feature locally sourced seasonal produce.
New menu items include papaya salad, étouffée, and jook (a rice porridge with mushroom, crushed peanuts, scallions, nori, and garlic oil), among others.
“It’s the same style of food as before,” says Dave. “Bold flavors and colors. Solid presentations. Satiating portions that pair well with whiskey.”
The cocktail program is familiar but different, with five classic cocktails (a Manhattan, Sazerac, Seelbach, etc.), as well as a section called “Some Cocktails We Made Up By Ourselves,” such as Carrots > Sticks (with reposado tequila, carrot shrub, lemon, and pear cider), Ume-Mami-Mommy (with plum whiskey, sambuca, shiitake, celery, pickled plum, and charcoal), and Here Comes the Sun (pictured at right and with gin, chartreuse,coconut, turmeric, and keffir lime). Whiskey flights have also returned.
The building design is also memorable, with floor-to-ceiling windows and a mezzanine accessed by a wrought-iron staircase that affords a closer look at the black-and-tan wallpaper, which includes four disparate subjects (no spoilers, here). Other walls contain restored photos of Bailey’s family, all of them in period automobiles.
Small Batch’s new hours will be 4–11 p.m. Thursday through Monday. “We wanted to make sure we stayed open on Mondays, because other restaurants aren’t,” Bailey says. “For that reason, it’s become a good day for us.”
Opened in 2014, Small Batch is one of eight restaurants in the Baileys’ Restaurants group. The other restaurants (in order of age, from oldest to newest) are the flagship Bailey’s Chocolate Bar, Rooster, Bridge Tap House & Wine Bar, Baileys’ Range, POP, Knockout BBQ, and Wing Ding Dong, a ghost kitchen. Also under the Baileys’ banner is a catering company, The Fifth Wheel, as well as two event venues, Willow and Slate. Of note is that all 10 businesses operate within the St. Louis city limits.
So what’s next for the entrepreneurial couple? The building permits have been approved for a second location of Baileys’ Range, a long-deferred project in a former service station at 4175 Shaw. Plans call for the 1,100-square-foot building’s footprint to be tripled, in addition to adding front and rear patios—the latter a covered patio connected to the building by garage doors. Part of the addition will include a walk-up window where guests can pick up burgers, shakes, and ice cream.
“In a way, we were lucky that the project was delayed,” Bailey says. “The 2021 version is more practical than the pre-pandemic one.”
