A pair of California-based restaurants plan to make their local debuts in a new strip mall at The Crossings at Richmond Heights, near Hanley and Interstate 64, this summer.
With 244 franchises across the country, Blaze Fast-Fire'd Pizza will serve quickly baked pizzas and salads. Vitality Bowls, a “superfood café” with more than 45 locations across the U.S., will offer bowls based around granola and açaí, prized for its antioxidants.
Photo courtesy of Blaze Pizza
Blaze Pizza in Rapid City, SD
Blaze Pizza president/CEO Jim Mizes, a graduate of Ladue Horton Watkins High School, hopes to open at least four restaurants here. The first is slated to open in Kirkwood in February or March, followed by St. Peters, Richmond Heights, and Chesterfield. “I think St. Louis can support many more than four restaurants,” he says.
Courtesy of Blaze Pizza
A build-your-own Blaze Pizza
Customers can purchase 11-inch pizzas with as many toppings as they like for $8.50. Blaze also serves such salads as the roasted squash and quinoa, featuring mixed greens, roasted butternut squash, quinoa, red peppers, feta, and lime vinaigrette. Mizes also hints that the restaurant will offer “a few nods to the heritage of St. Louis.” Asked if that means provel, he replies, "We’ll see—and maybe a few others.”
Vitality Bowls franchisee Sally Matiszik believes the café will fill a local void by offering superfoods. Such dishes as the Tropical Bowl (featuring organic açaí, coconut milk, apple juice, bananas, mango, pineapple, and flax seeds) and the Detox Bowl (featuring organic açai, almond milk, flax seed, kale, spirulina, bananas, and strawberries) will cost between $11 and $14. Smoothies will run about $6, and the restaurant plans to offer salads, paninis, fresh-pressed juices, and coffee and kombucha from local producers.
Matiszik believes the central location will draw customers from area businesses and The Heights facility next door. “It's such an incredible visible, easily accessible area that we are really excited to be in,” she says.
The new development will reportedly also feature a Marriott Hotel, a Red Robin, and a CycleBar indoor cycling facility, among other businesses.
