Update: 10/11/2022
4 Hands has announced that they now plan to open their Kirkwood location in the Spring of 2023, presumably to give themselves a chance to start out on the right foot in warmer weather. The space will have a gorgeous outdoor patio, but the indoor space is more limited. Peacemaker Lobster & Crab, the sister restaurant of the acclaimed Sidney Street Cafe and itself a former Ian Froeb STL100 pick, will serve as the food vendor. I couldn’t be more excited, but it looks like we’ll be waiting a little bit longer than originally anticipated.
Original Story: 09/15/2021
About a year ago, I wrote and article comparing Kirkwood to our eternal rival Webster Groves. While the foundation of that article was a call to action for Kirkwood to meet Webster’s housing push, I also mentioned in passing that Webster had a significantly superior culinary scene to that of its more westerly sister. Since then, a lot has changed. But more on that later. First we have to talk about 4 Hands Brewery, Savoy Properties, and one particular train caboose.
4 Hands Brewery
If all goes according to plan (and all indications are that it should), a new 4 Hands Brewery location will be coming to the corner of Clay & Argonne in the heart of Downtown Kirkwood. More precisely, the brewery has its eyes set on the recently shuttered Down By the Station boutique, next door to the former Custard Station (more on that in a second too). 4 Hands is one of the pre-eminent craft brewers in the area, having gained particular notoriety for their City Wide, Divided Sky, and Incarnation IPA lines. At the brewery’s only other location in the LaSalle Park neighborhood near Downtown St. Louis, they have tapped the nearby Sidney Street and Peacemaker restaurants to provide food, but it remains unclear what the company has in mind at its new suburban outpost in terms of culinary offerings. We do, however, have a few more details for what the space is expected to look like.
The plans as presented on this week’s Planning & Zoning Committee agenda, call for the craft brewery to preserve the existing two story brick structure as well as its iconic accompanying caboose with a few minor alterations. Most notably amongst these alterations will be the demolition of the existing enclosed breezeway that connects the caboose to the main brick building. That breezeway will be replaced with an open air overhead structure that will serve as a pedestrian entrance to an extensive bar-patio overlooking the train tracks.
The inside of the brick structure will feature a full kitchen, bar, and additional seating. The caboose will serve as a food-truck style dining window. Savoy, the longtime Kirkwood City Council whisperers and developer behind this project as well, has suggested that the development could bring as many as 15-30 full-time jobs to Downtown Kirkwood.
Welcome to the Club
4 Hands is the latest installment in what has been a recent boon to the Kirkwood food scene. While up until recently Kirkwood had little more than the renowned Nathaniel Reid bakery to hang its culinary hat on, the addition of Mission Taco & Gelato Di Riso on Jefferson, Mike Johnson, Charlie Downs and Ben Hillman’s Hi-Pointe and Chicken Out fast-casual offerings, and the recent announcement of Clementine’s Naughty and Nice Creamery imminent takeover of the former Custard Station all suggest that Kirkwood’s economic status and impressive foot-traffic have become to much to ignore. That analysis goes doubly true for this westerly section of downtown that stands to add even more residents with Savoy’s ongoing development of luxury apartments along Madison.
Kirkwood’s Retail Scene
In many ways, the replacement of a boutique with a brewery is indicative of the larger transformation Downtown Kirkwood’s retail scene is undertaking. As online shopping becomes increasingly prevalent, restaurants (and in a few cases event spaces like the Kirkwood Performing Art Center) are left as the only businesses for which brick and mortar operations are still economically viable. While new dining options are often exciting, concentrating too much of the same economic activity always presents downside risk to the city’s health. I hope to see Kirkwood City Council be a little proactive about diversifying the sorts of businesses that call Downtown Kirkwood home: Offer requests for proposals on any and all of the city owned parking lots to try to lure that long aught-after boutique hotel, loosen the zoning regulations that bar medical (and likely, soon, recreational) marijuana dispensaries, reach out to Trader Joes. I’m excited about 4 Hands. But if Downtown Kirkwood is going to be as walkable as I think we aspire to be, it’s going to take more than just bars and restaurants.
Oh, and one final plug: Can this finally be the thing that leads us to make Madison & Clay a four-way stop? Please. It’s a vision-zero no-brainer. What are we doing here.
This is a great addition to downtown Kirkwood. Hopefully our city council won’t screw it up.
Where will the patrons for the brewery and Clementines park? Billy G’s has taken all the available parking. St. Peter’s can’t accommodate everyone.
I had that initial reaction too but I think the direction Kirkwood needs to be moving towards is a goal of having most of these visitors arriving by foot/bike. Obviously in order to do that you have to add more housing near our downtown core (as well as more bike infrastructure to accommodate those living slightly further away). The new condos on Madison (recently completed/currently under construction will add to that housing capacity, as will the Kirkwood Flats/James, but obviously more is still needed. Every study of parking in Kirkwood has found excess capacity, but I know many have the perception that it’s hard to come by. Would love to see paid parking implemented so that those who are on the fence about whether they should walk or drive will have a little nudge to walk and those who need to drive will have available spots so long as they’re willing to pay
Rather than paid parking, I would prefer finding a way to point non-walking-challenged visitors to the plethora of unused free parking on the South side of the railroad tracks. The free public lot next to the new Hutton Condo building under construction is rarely filled in the evenings.
The free parking garage behind the Kirkwood Plaza Apartments where I used to live is also rarely filled. And the free garage behind the Kirkwood Plaza Condos across from IMOs is never full. They are both a very short walk to Argonne. I believe folks are not aware that parking in Station Plaza garages is free. And free street parking along Clay and Madison streets South of the railroad bridge is never full.
Folks seem to be unduly reluctant to cross the railroad tracks or railroad bridge to park. A one or two block walk to dinner is not unreasonable.
Or physically unable to make the walk or during inclement weather or they are concerned about safety of themselves and their car.
We find station plaza parking garages are often filled and now areas are restricted to residents only. The problem is that the no parking requirements are imposed within the downtown special business district. Eventually this will choke out any business from economic survival in downtown kirkwood. Even the performing arts centers has inadequate parking-I;ve been told. Nearby residents already complaining.
Thank you for your comment! I think this sentiment is one shared by many, but I also disagree and would love to make the case for why I do:
Minimum parking requirements are considered antiquated in modern planning as cars have considerable negative effects on a community. Carbon emissions, air pollution, pedestrian safety (people driving cars hit, injure, and sometimes kill pedestrians and cyclists where as the reverse is not true) all make encouraging travel by car planning malpractice. Encouraging more people to drive their personal vehicles to a bar where most patrons will be consuming alcoholic beverages makes even less sense from a healthy communities perspective.
The idea that discouraging driving will choke out businesses in Kirkwood runs counter to most of the evidence we have: First, the businesses that have moved (or announced their intention to move in the case of 4 Hands) to Kirkwood in recent years demonstrates that businesses are not particularly worried about a lack of parking (if they were, they wouldn’t move here). Second, the most economically productive places provide further evidence that driving does not drive productivity. In New York, most people don’t drive because there is too much traffic and not enough parking to make it worth it, and yet, people and businesses flock.
Now, Kirkwood isn’t New York and never will be. But it also isn’t Chesterfield or Ballwin. A community can prioritize cars or it can prioritize people, but it can’t do both at the same time. Given the costs cars impose on a community that I listed above, my preference is that we pick the latter.
This is actually funny. Just because you don’t like living in Kirkwood, doesn’t mean you get to change it. The entire community has a voice and no one I know is happy about the lack of parking to support our local merchants. No one is going to ride a bike or walk 9 miles (area of kirkwood) to buy a 50 pound of mulch or topsoil at OK hatchery or 3 bags of groceries from the market or Global foods and carry it back home. What you are advocating for will choke & extinguish many of our local retailers and restaurants in kirkwood. Its is illogical.
And I actually lived in manhattan and find your understanding of the city and your assumption that “traffic is the reason most people don’t drive” to be completely out of sink & demonstrates the lack of understanding most New Yorkers condone outsiders for. The comparison you make that a community must prioritize cars or people but that it can’t do both is a false equivalency. Not sure what costs cars impose on a city considering the tax on gasoline funds most major roadways that both walkers and cyclists use or how hybrid or electric cars will be such a “burden” on a community. Why doesn’t kirkwood give up their fleet of electric cars and ask all employees to walk or ride their bike? Set a good example for you are advocating for. Please encourage this. Oh and make sure the post office starts walking all mail delivery’s too. Dump the delivery cars, get the pony expresss back too. AND give horses and animal carts their own transportation lanes like cyclists are demanding. That is true equality.
Yes, I, a person that dedicates hours upon hours to researching and writing about Kirkwood, completely for free, don’t actually like Kirkwood; you caught me.
The whole point of this blog is to try and convince people that our community can always improve and then putting those improvements into action. People throughout history with the same goal in mind have made Kirkwood what it is today.
It’s okay that I haven’t convinced you yet, I’ll keep trying!
Our community makes great efforts to gather citizen input on current and future planning from all age groups and neighborhoods. They hire professionals to conduct surveys and gather public feed back, interpreting it back in a usable format to represent everyone and establish priorities for the common good. You may wish to consider investing your time in being part of the process that includes the entire community . Its riskier than preaching from your home computer to an email list of people from who already agree with you. But if u sincerely want the best for all of kirkwood, you have to be expand your opportunities to understand the needs of all residents.
because hiding behind a computer to tell every what you think they should do is cowardly.
Sorry unable to edit out the last part
And I Thank You sincerely for being involved and researching so much material. We all love our community