About a month ago, the managers of a sushi restaurant in Webster Groves taped a sign on the door: “Please do not enter if you smell of marijuana. The Sushi Station is a family restaurant, we do not want kids and family to smell it. Thank you.”
Marie Creswell, who has been a server at Sushi Station for almost 10 years, says workers were fed up by the skunky aroma. What had been an occasional annoyance a few years ago started to plague their nostrils every day.
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“The restaurant is small, so the aroma fills the space relatively quick, and I guess the quality is getting better and better over the years,” she says. “It tends to stick [around]. Even after that particular guest leaves, it’ll just stay in the air.”
The restaurant was worried about cueing a backlash, but Creswell says none has been in evidence. “I’ll see a guest come by, look at the sign, go back to their car, and then they’ll come back a few minutes later, like, after everything is aired out,” she reports. She’s also noticed a few patrons taking photos of the sign. “I think it’s a sentiment a lot of people in the community share.”
The one negative seems to come from patrons who are trying to mask their marijuana odor—and spray on a little too much cologne. Says Creswell, “There’s no easy fix.” She adds that the restaurant doesn’t want to alienate customers who smoke, but just wants to ensure the restaurant is comfortable for everyone.
Home to 23,000 residents and known for its tree-lined streets and well-educated residents (novelist Jonathan Franzen is a native, as is longtime CBS News journalist Russ Mitchell), Webster Groves isn’t exactly synonymous with cannabis culture. Even with recreational marijuana now legal in Missouri, the city has no dispensaries within its borders, and few would peg Webster as a nightlife destination. Still, cannabis use is quietly present. As Creswell observes, those partaking often defy stereotypes: “It’s, like, a middle-aged person in their 50s with gray hair and wearing a suit.”
Whoever they are, they seem to have no shortage of good stuff—to the point that even the people serving them sushi wonder about their suppliers. “I don’t know who’s supplying the Webster Groves community,” Creswell says, “but whoever it is, they’re making bank.”
