“Ballpark Village just became too much of a burden,” says Mark Winfield, who owns The Precinct Sports Bar & Grill at 1900 Locust along with former Cardinal Jim Edmonds. “We were hoping things would improve this season, when the newness wore off, but that’s not happening.”
Winfield says he thought the opening of the police headquarters next door would turn things around. (“We named our place after it, after all,” he says.) Then, he hoped that the new year would do the same, but the pendulum never swung. The unusually candid Winfield adds, “And the place wasn’t doing gangbusters to begin with.”
Winfield and Edmonds also own Winfield’s Gathering Place in Kirkwood (right), a 4-month-old restaurant that Winfield describes as “busy as hell,” a factor that played into the decision to close The Precinct. “When one restaurant does in an hour what the other does all day, on a Friday, the reality hits you pretty quickly,” Winfield says.
The Precinct closed after service yesterday. The majority of the employees will be offered jobs in Kirkwood, he says.
In 2007, Winfield and Edmonds bought a 14,000-square-foot building at the corner of 19th and Locust and opened Fifteen (Edmonds jersey number as a Cardinal), a combination steakhouse, bar, nightclub, and private event space. In a Q&A in 2007, Winfield called Fifteen a “fresh take on a steakhouse,” which may not have been a bad idea—had Highway 40 not closed down at the same time as an economic recession.
The partners shifted gears in November 2013, rebranding the restaurant as The Precinct Sports Bar & Grill and the banquet area as Jim Edmond's Space 15, which will remain open.
“Our banquet business there is solid,” Winfield says of the three rooms, which can accommodate up to 400 people. “It’s not affected as much by the other factors downtown.”
