Editor’s note: This article was updated on Feb. 11, noting a closing date of March 1 rather than May 31. Slow sales in the 4th quarter 2025/1st quarter prompted the change.
Turn (3224 Locust), the vinyl album–themed breakfast-and-lunch spot in Midtown’s Grand Center Arts District owned by chef David Kirkland and his wife, Stefanie, will close March 1, after an eight-and-a-half-year run.
Kirkland tells SLM that the decision was not driven by business concerns but by an upcoming move out of state. His wife has accepted a position as The Windgate Foundation Curator of Contemporary Craft at Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts in Little Rock, Arkansas. The couple plans to relocate there this summer.
Kirkland is grateful for the chance to wind things down gracefully and gradually. “Five months is plenty of time for people to visit Turn for the first or final time,” he says, noting that a drawn-out farewell feels like the best possible way to close out his latest endeavor.
As for what comes next, Kirkland says he plans to step back from the restaurant world for now and “take a break from chasing the increasing costs of food, labor, and insurance.” He doesn’t rule out an eventual return, however, adding that he sees Little Rock as “an underserved restaurant market with a lot of opportunity.”
The Backstory
Longtime St. Louis diners may remember Kirkland from his stints at the Café at the Saint Louis Art Museum, Frazier’s Brown Bag, or Venice Café’s Jerk Shack. Most likely, though, it was from the wondrous pancakes, biscuits, and Brie LTs that he produced at Café Osage, along with fellow chef David Guempel. The dishes cemented Kirkland as a quietly inventive presence on the local food scene.
Before returning to St. Louis to operate Café Osage, Kirkland spent six years in San Francisco as a dance-music DJ. To him, music and cooking are parallel pursuits, both relying on rhythm, intuition, and the act of combining individual elements into something new. That influence carried over to Café Osage, where he developed a line of preserves that he dubbed “slow jams,” naming them after R&B songs and adorning the jars with record-inspired graphics.
When Ken and Nancy Kranzberg envisioned a chef-driven presence for .ZACK, the Kranzberg Arts Foundation’s multi-use arts facility in the historic Cadillac building, they installed David Kirkland Catering on the ground floor with the expectation that a restaurant would follow. Turn was the natural evolution.
“The restaurant associations were everywhere,” Kirkland told SLM not long after he opened the place. “Turning tables, turning things on the grill, turning up the heat, turning of the seasons—this place turns me on.”
The musical theme continued visually with a 72-album display stretching along the main wall that Kirkland called a “changeable mosaic,” an art installation that reflected the restaurant’s personality and soundtrack. Menu offerings were divided into Side A (breakfast), Side B (lunch), and Liner Notes (sides).
Popular breakfast items include the four-biscuit flight (which changes each month), crispy-edged pancakes and French toast with seasonal compotes, and the L.E.O (with poached eggs, smoked salmon, caramelized onions, goat cheese, dill hollandaise, and capers atop rye toast). Lunch features include an orange teriyaki glazed salmon sandwich (with ginger miso mayo), a Tuscan panino, and the aforementioned Brie LT, which remains a big seller.
Turn is open for breakfast, lunch, and brunch from Wednesday through Sunday through March 1.
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