Chicken, Catfish, and Community: Rick Lewis' Culinary Journey

Arnold00:00:00

Our guest's culinary journey started at a mom and pop restaurant. He worked his way to fine dining by learning the culture and quality of a professional chef and kitchen.He's been recognized as a James Beard Rising Star semi finalist and his Comfort Style cuisine has garnered acclaim as the best restaurant in Sauce Magazine, feast magazine and St. Louis magazine, as well as a feature on Food paradise and the Food Network. He's been recognized also in Food and Wine, Forbes and Travel Leisure. We're going to talk to our guest in just a moment on St. Louis in Tune.Welcome to St. Louis in Tune and thank you for joining us for fresh perspectives on issues and events with experts, community leaders and everyday people who make a difference in shaping our society and world. I'm Arnold Stricker along with co host Mark Langston, who happens to be on assignment today. And we're glad that you've joined us today, folks.We want to thank our sponsor, Better Rate Mortgage for their support of the show.You can listen to previous shows@stlintune.com please help us continue to grow by leaving a review on our website, Apple Podcast or your preferred podcast platform. Our thought to ponder today, don't speculate on what might happen. Imagine what you can actually make happen.Thinking about some things but not acting on them in the right way, but speculation of what might happen. Imagine what you could actually do and make it happen. That's something to consider, folks. And our guest has done that.He's been, as I mentioned, I call him the Catfish King or he's the Chicken King. He's the chicken, by the way. I gotta get this out here. I have to turn my page here.His fried chicken has been voted the best fried chicken in Missouri by the Food Network. That is an acclaim that we need to really make sure that we got. Oh my gosh, that's the wrong thing. There we go right there. There we go.That's the best fried chicken, Rick. We got Rick Lewis in studio today. Rick, welcome to St. Louis and Tune.

Rick00:02:15

Thank you so much. Such an epic intro for me, too. I love it.

Arnold00:02:19

Yeah, you've. I enjoy going to your restaurant. And you opened another one. We'll talk about that in a minute.And you got you started with the food truck, but take us back to the. Where I was talking about the mom and Pop restaurant.

Rick00:02:33

Yeah. So if we're gonna go all the way back, the first restaurant I ever worked in was Delaney's over in South County.That would be at that time Ron and Maria Grimaldi owned that restaurant. And then I really I had to beg for my position there.

Arnold00:02:47

What'd you do there?

Rick00:02:48

So I started out and making salads in front, working the fryer. So it's gone full circle. I'm back on the fryers. But. But, yeah, I started out doing that and doing some prep, and then went from there to LaRusso's.Kachina Rich and Terry LaRusso, same thing. Started out in prep and then working salads, and then worked my way all the way through that kitchen and learned a lot.Working in those places, you get the privilege of working really close and alongside the owners, right? The guys that created these businesses and started them. And I think having that opportunity really fed into me as a young cook.And then, let's see, from there, I went to an American place, Larry Forgione Kitchen, ran by Josh Galliano. And then, once again, that was just such a huge, huge honor and a privilege. I had no idea what I was doing stepping into that kitchen.I'd never seen food that looked like that. Didn't know about food like we were doing there, really.And, yeah, just Josh took me under his wing and really poured into me, gave me a Michel Bra cookbook. Central Cuisine, I think, is the name of it, to borrow at that time. And it just, like. It, like, wowed me. Just blew my mind.

Arnold00:04:02

Did you go home and start making some of these things, or did you after hours? You made some of those things at work?

Rick00:04:07

I was like, my God, why'd he give me this book? What, am I gonna just cook this egg yolk emulsion at home for fun? But I did start making some of the stuff in it.And really, his goal, I think, was just to inspire me. He did such a wonderful job of. And he's called me the sponge back then because I was just. Oh, yeah, consuming all this information.

Arnold00:04:26

So from each of these places that you've been, you gleaned different kinds of things, either for the business part of it, how to run a kitchen, cooking, designing, recipes.

Rick00:04:37

I really, Yeah, I really didn't work, like, a ton of restaurants. I. Restaurants, just honestly, out of necessity for a job, really. Like, I was doing rehab work with my dad.He has small business, own a lot of real estate, residential real estate, house flipping, stuff like that. And I just didn't really love that. And. But I did enjoy cooking.Looking back, like, there was little hints all over my growing up, but I just didn't know it yet.

Arnold00:05:03

Like, what?

Rick00:05:03

And just, like, I would show a lot of interest in my mother cooking. We cooked a lot, cooked dinner, like, every Meal every day for all of us.And from I think four years old, three or four years old, she taught me how to scramble eggs at 3 years old. And I was like making eggs and, and then like growing up, as I got older in high school, I always joke about this.I showed a lot of interest in, in parties and throwing parties and hosting people over fine parties. And I started throwing barbecues at the park after school or throwing parties where we would have people barbecuing and kegs.And I would charge money to come to these big parties. I get someone to play some music or something. And so it just, I think I liked, I loved people.I loved networking very young and just knew a lot of people and loved that. And then once I got into restaurants, I feel I kind of, I got to interact with alongside people in those environments.You work very closely with all the people that work in restaurants on a day to day basis. You see them a lot. And I loved that. And then like I said, getting to know those owners at those restaurants, they took pride.Everybody takes pride in something. They build like that, whether it's just taking care of the place properly or learning why they do what they do or how they got in it.And, and so that was really cool. And then meeting someone like Josh, who is this extremely intelligent, very gifted person with food, they were all like educations. Right.I didn't go to college. I didn't at that time, didn't really know what I wanted to do or why go to college. I wasn't much into school.Like I had trouble in school growing up and just had trouble sitting at a desk learning like that. Right. But when I'm working alongside people or more hands on, I learned really well.And, and so really that each place I worked really was like educational for me. Right. And so I stuck around and most all of them until I just felt like I either wasn't like learning something or I wanted to learn more.And so I went from like the bar and grill to the family owned Italian restaurant to an American place, which that was like a huge transition. And then from an American place to Monarch, where Josh left an American place, went to Monarch.

Arnold00:07:26

I didn't know you were at Monarch.

Rick00:07:28

Yep. And then started there as another line cook with him. Worked into the sous chef role. Met my wife there.

Arnold00:07:35

Okay, congratulations.

Rick00:07:36

Yeah, thank you. She's wonderful. She's much more gifted than I am at most things. She's an amazing woman. And, and yeah, just, it was all a journey.I never once, a little bit here and there, but it never really was about money or what I was making. It was more about what I was learning. And so I just continued to move wherever my heart called me to in order to learn more.And that's really the way our entire career has gone, is like we just keep walking through doors that open up.

Arnold00:08:09

Because when did you get to Quincy Street? When did you make that leap? Because you were running that whole show, weren't you?

Rick00:08:15

Yeah. So Monarch had announced they were going to be closing after a very long run.And like I said, I had met my wife there at the time, girlfriend, and we were getting pretty serious. I was thinking about proposing to her. And her parents had opened Quincy Street.Her dad, similar kind of to my dad, he did a lot of like, general contracting, construction work, stuff like that.Had his own business and bought what was, I think it was called Jimmy's Tavern, maybe, I can't remember, and renovated the whole building and just made it gorgeous. And his intent was to lease it out to a friend of his that was going to operate as a restaurant.And then very quickly they got looped into the restaurant business and so they're running that place with a partner. Elissa and I were still working at Monarch. And then she would come home, come over to my house, like, just pretty upset.Her mom and dad were stressed out. Things weren't going great there. It was just a disorganized mess and they're struggling a little bit.And so I really thought, like, really once Monarch had announced the closure and people started reaching out with job opportunities, to me, it was like the first time people were coming to me for jobs instead of me going out hunting.

Arnold00:09:35

Down jobs, shoes on the other foot.

Rick00:09:37

And that was pretty flattering. But I really like at that time, thought I would go work for.I always loved Kevin Nash and I spent a lot of time in his kitchens with his guys while working with Josh and Monarch. And so I had sat down with an interview to interview with him and talk about what I wanted to do. And that was really a pivotal conversation.And he's always, he's been a great mentor to me over the years as well. And I was telling him the things that I was considering. One, going and helping my in laws over there, or two, coming to work with him.And he just looked at me and he was like, brother, your heart's already in that thing over there. You're gonna marry that girl. And he's. There's always going to be jobs like this with guys like me for a guy like you. And he's just Go do it.If it works out, it's going to be great. If it doesn't work out, you can always come back and work with me. And. And so I was like, all right. So I talked to Alyssa.I was like, this is what we're going to do. Her dad had me into Quincy street, walked me around. He's like, what do you think about all this? I was like, it's a mess. And. And.And we talked about it and figured out what we were gonna do. Now he had a partner at that time, so we couldn't change a bunch of stuff. And I was honestly, I was embarrassed.Cause I was doing one thing going down this, like, more fine dining, like, modern kind of deal. And then I went there. And at that time, they weren't really.It was a good neighborhood bar and grill kind of thing, but they weren't doing anything spectacular, spectacular, interesting. And not to knock on it. So Mike and Sue, if you hear this, I'm not knocking on the way Quincy street was. It's just different.And I think they know that. And. And so I really didn't say anything to anybody when I started working there. And. And we quietly started changing little things here and there.And then Mike and Sue bought out their partner that they were having issues with. And that then opened up the door for me to be able to change stuff.And so their whole vision for that place from kind of day one was to just have this family comfort food restaurant. And so the menu, they had a ton of items, some of which were things that were reflective of what they wanted.They wanted fried chicken and meatloaf and burgers and stuff like that. But they also had pastas and salads and appetizers and seafood and not great seafood and steaks and pizza and just huge menu.And so I was like, all right, we're gonna, like, chop this thing down by 75%.

Arnold00:12:01

Yeah, a lot to prep for.

Rick00:12:02

And they weren't crazy about that at first. They fought me on something. They're like, oh, what about the chicken spagini? And I'm like, we don't sell any of them.These are the items you're selling. Those are the items you want.And so after some negotiations, that's what we did, was pared it down to about, I don't know, 25 or 30 items, something like that, which was still pretty large menu, I felt like. But that's what we did. And then focused on sourcing everything from local farms.I worked with a handful of farmers, Matt Tiefenbrewing, Buttonwood Farms he had just started raising chickens. His parents came into dinner. They were like, where are you getting your chickens? And so we were one of like his first vendors there.He's now grown that company huge and I think he just sold it or something like that. They're wonderful people. And a bunch of other vegetable farmers and guys doing cool stuff.And all the breweries were just opening up in St. Louis, like perennial and four hands and herb and Chestnut. We had the big like kind of brewery boom right around the same time they opened up at Quincy street.And we became really close friends with all those guys.So I was like, all right, we're gonna do local beer and we're gonna do farm to table comfort food and maybe serve some bourbon or something like that. So we put a bunch of taps in, we doubled the number that they had down there and then just carried all these rotating taps and seasonal.Did seasonal menus and seasonal food. And then one. One little write up came out and then another one came in and you were killing it.And then Ian Frobe wrote this article where I was the chef of the year. And then I think a couple months later, that's when he nominated us or we got nominated for the James Beard Award.And then that put us on the map between those two things. It was like people, we were a destination on Loughborough and Gravoy. And it was a pretty amazing thing. It was like looking back as like you just.You're doing kind of where your heart's calling. You're walking through these open doors and it was just really amazing. And. And so that's really where I met Mike Emerson and some different guys.And he popped his head in the kitchen like that first day after the James Beard nominee and there's a line out the door and we're running out of food. It was nuts.And we got Elissa's little brother and her little sister and her mom and dad's washing dishes and everybody's back there doing prep and the Mike's. What can I help you with? I was like, you could take this stack of pork bellies and take them down to Pappy's and smoke them and.Cause I had this little backyard. I brought my smoker from my house over there. Like it was. We were like, yeah, just crunch time. Just crunch time and doing it the old school way.And that was amazing for quite a few years, but we always wanted to own our own business. And that was her parents restaurant. It started to become clear that was the way it was going to be.And then an Opportunity arise to partner with Emerson over there next to Pappy's and launch a restaurant.

Arnold00:15:03

And that restaurant was called Southern.

Rick00:15:06

Southern.

Arnold00:15:07

We're going to talk more to Rick Lewis about Southern. This is Arnold Stricker with Mark Langston of St. Louis in Tune.So is that when you got into the fried chicken or were you always into the fried chicken? Because Southern was really known for the fried chicken.

Rick00:15:21

It is interesting. So the food that we cook is food that I love. It's like food that's reminiscent of food I grew up with. Quincy street was like a version of that.It was just more of this kind of farm to table, upscale version of the food that I love. We're still doing similar sides and we had a fried chicken there.It was different, but Southern was the true avenue where it was like, okay, I'm now the fried chicken guy in St. Louis.

Arnold00:15:48

Sure. And you are.

Rick00:15:49

Yeah. And it was also our first kind of foray into the true casual, like, counter service style restaurant.And we really had no experience with that going into it. And so, yeah, he was like, hey, there's a space next to Pappy's. We were looking at spaces and that's how it came up.And then he realized, oh, we're looking to do something different. And then he pitched the idea of doing something together.That sounded like a great idea because I'd never opened a restaurant on my own and had really, honestly no idea what I was doing. I was just cooking food, having fun and checking on guests.

Arnold00:16:23

But you had prepared all the way along the way.

Rick00:16:25

Yeah, we were laying a foundation that I can see now. I also can see how I really had no idea what I was doing.

Arnold00:16:32

You're honest about that?

Rick00:16:33

Oh, yeah, dude. I've learned like, I am a hands on trial and error. I've learned a lot of lessons the hard way and. But it's good.It's made, I think, us very smart and. And made us who we are. So, yeah, they were like, we really like this comfort food thing you got going on. What do you think about fried chicken?And I think I was like, I think that's awesome. And people that eat barbecue are gonna eat fried chicken.

Arnold00:17:00

And because there really wasn't a quote unquote chicken plate. Now some people would disagree with me.

Rick00:17:05

Yeah, I mean, you had like Hodaks and Porter. You had the old school guy. There was nobody doing like looking at that and doing like newer take on.

Arnold00:17:15

It and with a Southern kind of twist.

Rick00:17:17

Yeah, yeah. And. And honestly, going back to Quincy street, like, there was really but nobody doing that type of food at that time. The stuff we were doing.

Arnold00:17:26

That's true.

Rick00:17:26

It was like one of the first kind of gastro pubby kind of things that we had.

Arnold00:17:33

Yeah.

Rick00:17:33

And then shortly after, there was lots of different stuff. It's been really cool. I feel honored to be somewhat a part of.

Arnold00:17:41

Trailblazing.

Rick00:17:42

Yeah. The growth of maybe not a huge part of it, but a small part of it. And.And we saw Hot chicken blown up in Nashville and we were like, there's nothing like this. Let's do something like that. And then a differentiator was the catfish too.A lot of those places don't really do the catfish, but we were like, let's do the Southern take. And looking back too, when we opened up, we did chicken and sandwiches. So we had all these sandwiches and we were doing all this stuff.And really quickly it was like, okay, this, we're chicken and catfish is what we're doing. And. And yeah, all the, all the accolades, all the acknowledgments, all the cool stuff was going on. Line out the door, just gangbuster busy.It's at like 75 people. And we were literally. We would kick people out of there.

Arnold00:18:29

We would be like, you can't sit and talk.

Rick00:18:31

Thank you so much. How was it? And they're like, oh, so good. Thank you so much for coming in. We need to seat someone else.

Arnold00:18:38

Yeah.

Rick00:18:39

And most of the time they just smile and get up and say thank you. Because it was like very apparent you had people.We would stop the register, you have people hanging around you and the bussers be walking around you with squirt bottle of sanitizer hinting at getting up. We'd bus all your stuff out from underneath you as soon as you took that last bite. And. And so that was wild. And it was good for a while.There was a few things, you know, that. That I made some mistakes along the way and they did. And it just.It got to a point where I was like, alright, I think this isn't necessarily forever for us either. Right.But the huge blessing that came out of that place and lessons learned in business and stuff like that was I met our current partner, Adam Wainwright over there eating barbecue. I started talking to this guy and I have no idea who he is.I went over there to get some brisket or something for lunch while we were building Southern and I just started talking to this guy, just randomly. And he's sitting down. He was kind of back of their restaurant, which is. And I was cutting through to Their kitchen. So that's how it happened.But he's sitting back there with a couple other ball players. And I started talking to him about hunting and gardening. And we talked for maybe an hour, like a while.

Arnold00:19:55

Wow.

Rick00:19:56

And I go back over to the restaurant to Southern, and everybody's like, what were you talking to him about? You know who that is?

Arnold00:20:04

Fastballs and curveballs.

Rick00:20:06

Like, that's Adam Wainwright. I was like, who's Adam Wainwright? They're like, what, the Cardinals pitcher feature hall of Famer? He's awesome. I was like, oh, really?So I grabbed some hats, went back over there. I was like, hey, we're getting ready to open this restaurant. Would you want to come to our soft opening? And he was like, sure, if I'm in town.So I was like, cool, what's your number? He gives me his phone number, which is pretty crazy. And. And we stayed in touch. And I would send him a picture of a little deer I shot.He'd send me a picture of this monster that he shot and became buddies every time he came to our soft opening. Brought his wife, Jenny.

Arnold00:20:40

Cool.

Rick00:20:40

And then every time he was in town, he would bring his family or we got to know each other. And so when we left, when we left Southern, we were trying to figure stuff out, Right. It happened abruptly.I won't go into all the details, but I left abruptly. And we had a house payment, two car payments. My wife's going to college. Still had school bills, or.No, she had just graduated college, but we had all the bills from college. And I just up and leave my job. And we're like, what are we gonna do? And pitched the idea to them. We go out to eat.I'm giving you the abbreviated version of the story. It took a while getting to this point. Pitched the idea to them to open up a restaurant.And our vision was just to have a community building restaurant that really centered around fellowship and bringing people from all walks of life together. Just to have good Southern homestyle food.

Arnold00:21:41

And hospitality and just conversation.

Rick00:21:46

Yep. Simple food, hospitality, forward, care for the community, care for the staff. And. And we pitched the idea to that to him and his brother.It was like winter warm up 2015 or 2016, I think, because we opened it. No, It'd be like 2016 because we opened in 2017. Maybe it was in 2017. I don't know, Whatever. And it's super emotional.I'm like, I got some tears flowing a little bit. And just because I felt like I got my family into a predicament. Right. And we Leave. And I look at Elisa, and I'm like, how do you think that went?And she's like, I think it went pretty good. I was like, you sure? She's like, yeah, I think it went good.And so we're driving home, and I get a text message from Trey, Adam's brother, and he's just, hey, man, we want to let you know we got your back and everything's gonna be okay. And so we started finalizing a deal. Like a. Like, I had a really crappy business plan. I proposed to them. There is, like, a menu on an old iPad, right.And, like, a terrible mission statement. Not terrible mission statement, but pretty rough around the edges.

Arnold00:22:58

Better than on a napkin?

Rick00:22:59

Yeah. Yeah. It was a few steps above a napkin, but it was terrible. And he was, like, really adamant. And so this is where the education came back in.So he was. Trey's legal background, works in private equity, and he's. He was like, wanted me to go through the formal process of doing this, right?Like, I was pitching it to a bank or something. And so I did that, and I went through all that, and it was, like, pain for me. Like, I am not.

Arnold00:23:31

You're the kitchen guy.

Rick00:23:32

I'm hands on, talking to people, cooking food, and I'm not, like, sticking at a laptop and try to come up with a bunch of numbers that make sense and design something. But he walked me through it, and. And so we started looking at places, and.And I'm doing some catering gigs for Adam and the Cardinals at the same time to put a few bucks in our pocket and pay or keep the bill collectors away. And. And. And we start looking at places, and we happen to just drive past sweetie pies down there in the grove. And the. They were closed.And we're like, they're sweetie pies. But why they closed? And so there was no sign up, nothing like that. We just called on the property. And so we get in touch with Landlord. Hey, yeah.They're on their way out. And so we met with them, walked through, and we're like, this is way big. It's twice the size of what we were looking for.But we were like, this is the home for this place. And it felt so natural. Right? It's like we wanted to do this meet in three comfort food concept. We're coming in after the legendary soul food place.There was also a little bit of tension around that, too.

Arnold00:24:38

Right.

Rick00:24:39

But it was perfect, and it felt like home. So we started negotiating with landlord and worked out a deal, and that's been wonderful.And we can be more thrilled for how much we've enjoyed being in the Grove and the experience doing that.

Arnold00:24:52

We're going to talk more to Rick Lewis about Grace Meat and three, which is the restaurant that he and his wife run, and they've opened up another one out in Cross. And we'll also talk about the food truck. This is Arnold Stricker with mark Langston on St. Louis and Tune. Don't go Away.

Arnold00:25:18

This is Arnold Stricker of St. Louis in tune on behalf of the Dred Scott Heritage Foundation. In 1857, the Dred Scott decision was a major legal event and catalyst that contributed to the Civil War.The decision declared that Dred Scott could not be free because he was not a citizen.The 14th Amendment, also called the Dred Scott Amendment, granted citizenship to all born or naturalized here in our country and was intended to overturn the US Supreme Court decision on July 9, 1868.The Dred Scott Heritage foundation is requesting a commemorative stamp to be issued from the US Postal Service to recognize and remember the heritage of this amendment by issuing a stamp with a the likeness of the man Dred Scott. But we need your support and the support of thousands of people who would like to see this happen.To achieve this goal, we ask you to download, sign and share the one page petition with others. To find the petition, please go to dredscottlives.org and click on the Dred Scott Petition drive on the right side of the page.On behalf of the Dred Scott Heritage foundation, this has been Arnold Stricker of St. Louis in tune.

Arnold00:26:19

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Rick00:27:19

Want.

Arnold00:27:19

To welcome you back to St. Louis in tune. This is Arnold Stricker with Mark Langston. Mark is on assignment today. We're talking to Rick Lewis.He's the owner, operator, chef, restaurateur, jack of all trades at Grace Meat and Three down in the Grove on Manchester. And Grace Meat and Three cultivates meaningful connections through delicious meals. If you've not been there, you are really missing it.And I want to give Rick a kudo on this, because I was always searching for catfish in St. Louis, and we would go down to Arkansas when we were visiting down there, and it just wasn't the right kind of deal. And, man, I ordered catfish at grace meat and 3. The very first thing I ordered.Matter of fact, I usually order that all the time, but I'll get some of the specials. I'll get some of the. I'll get the fried chicken, too. And I was like, holy smokes. And you said, there's a difference there.

Arnold00:28:15

And I don't know if you want.

Arnold00:28:16

To go into that, but it makes a difference to me. And if you want the best catfish in St. Louis, you have to go to Grace Meat in three.

Rick00:28:23

Thank you. Thank you.I did want to touch on some of the stuff we talked about, just because it dawned on me that it would be a shame to waste an opportunity to be able to pour a little bit of wisdom on some younger cooks or younger guys doing some.

Arnold00:28:35

Oh, we were going to do that.

Arnold00:28:36

At the end, but if you want to do it now, go ahead.

Rick00:28:39

It's applicable.And I think the important thing to realize so far through this journey of what we've been doing is, like, I took something that wasn't mine and I stewarded it.

Arnold00:28:51

That's a great word for that.

Rick00:28:53

So when I was learning at the mom and pop shops and then the opportunity at Quincy street, even though it was not. They were not mine, I ran them as if they were mine. And I worked just as hard as if they were mine. And. And I think people are always watching.And people, when you meet people, they get a sense of your character and who you are.And so I think for me, and those opportunities, like, then opened up the gate for other opportunities, such as, like, partnering with Mike over there at Pappy's and to present a really good opportunity to me at that time, and then meeting Adam and Trey and them to then go out on a leap and invest in us in a time where, quite honestly, I would have probably not even been able to get a bank loan just with as much personal debt as we had at the time and everything like that. And what they saw was someone that is willing to.Has a good heart, is willing to work hard and isn't going to fail because he's gonna pour us all into it. And if he does fail, he's. I'm gonna at least go down fighting.And that whole time, I wasn't necessarily aware of it at the time, but when I look back at all that stuff, and I think it's really important for young people today because you can get really caught up in this social media where everything's easy. You deserve all this. You know it's gonna come and that's not true. Like it's fake. Yes.

Arnold00:30:30

Preach it.

Rick00:30:30

You're gonna get it. If you work hard, right? You sacrifice a lot and you pour your everything into stuff, right? And you shoot for the stars.If you shoot for the stars and you fall a little bit short, you're.

Arnold00:30:41

Still out there in space.

Rick00:30:43

You're way out there in space, and you're way ahead of a lot of people.And so there's a tendency to either settle for less because you just think, oh, that's not you, and so you don't dream big enough, or there's a tendency to think that you deserve it and it's gonna come easy. And. And neither one of those are true. Everybody deserves to live a big, full, meaningful life. And you were designed to work.And you were designed to work hard and get out there, especially when you're young. Get out there and risk it, get after and work hard for it. But don't think that it's just gonna come to you or that you deserve it.Work your butt off, you know, prove your worth, and then people will see that, and then the fruit of that will come on the back end.

Arnold00:31:28

And the restaurant business is especially difficult. There's a lot that goes into it. A lot of people think, I can open a restaurant. There's a lot, a lot that goes into it. You almost have to live it.

Rick00:31:39

And. Yeah, and you're not. You might be a really talented chef or cook or whatever, but that's not all you're doing.You're a counselor, you're a plumber, you're a trash man, you're a bookkeeper, you're a. You name it. All businesses are the same. So you're wearing.And you're a small business, so that means you're wearing all those hats until you can afford to pay somebody else smarter than you to do them. You have to nurse it along.

Arnold00:32:05

But piggybacking off what you said. In any vocation or anything that you're doing, being a good steward of working in any kind of business, you're learning whatever it is.But if you treat it like it is yours, there's a lot more personal input into it. There's a lot more ownership, personal ownership. And it really develops character in you.

Rick00:32:24

It develops a ton of character. And so does all the hardships and trials that go through that.As long as you're willing to keep lifting your head up and pushing through that stuff, you're going to come out on the back end a better business person, a better chef, a better whatever role you're doing. I don't care if you're the dishwasher. And we've talked to our team about stuff like this all the time.You wear that title, you run that, you do it and do it with pride because it's an important part of it. And so we. We try to drive home that culture a little bit at the restaurant.And when I sit here and talk about stuff, like, I'm like, really, we should do it a lot more than what we do.

Arnold00:32:59

You're doing it. And I think in a lot of places, those conversations don't even occur, or it doesn't occur to the ownership to have those conversations.

Rick00:33:08

Yeah. And it's. It a little, I don't know, short sight is the right word.But if you can inspire even your dishwasher to be like, want to open a restaurant or do think how much harder he's going to work and doing right this stuff. Maybe then he's going to cook and then maybe he's going to work out front and then who knows? But anybody can do it.Some people have more natural ability than others that you just got to offset that with harder work.

Arnold00:33:30

That's right. You're walking into Grace meeting three. Great atmosphere. The. The food is just. You go for the food, but there's a lot more involved.One of the things I think my wife and I compliment you on all the time is during COVID man, you opened up that window and the takeout window. And what a great idea. Rather than having to go into the restaurant, you're right outside the windows right there. Boom.You could call your order in, you can order online.

Rick00:33:57

And really that was another, like, huge blessing that, like, because we opened that September of 2019. So we opened it before COVID okay. For late night food. And then when Covet hit, we were just perfectly positioned, you were to go through it. And.And it just was amazing. Once again, it was just like we saw an opportunity back then with some dead space in the restaurant. There was nothing in that little spot.It was just like literally dead real estate. And. And now we just use it for carry out all day every day.And we felt at that time an obligation to be safe and make sure we weren't doing anything crazy. But we were positioned well to be able to do it. We had a whole bunch, our whole team wanted to continue to work.And so it's like, how can we do this and do it safely?And we also felt if we're a community building restaurant, then what is better during a stressful time like that than to have something that is still like a glimmer of hope of normalcy at that time. And people were coming out in droves to tell us that, oh yeah, that how much it helped them and how thankful they were.And then we felt so blessed that then we were donating meals and money to give to furloughed restaurant employees at that time. And we raised a mess of money and a ton of meals. I had, I still got pictures of them, like tickets where people were like, just give the.They bought whatever, 15 meals. They're like, just give these to someone that needs it. And. Or we love you guys so much. Thank you for being out here doing this. And.And so that was an amazing period.

Arnold00:35:40

Of time to you guys moved into the. Was the food truck after that or food truck before that?

Rick00:35:47

So the food truck came. The food truck came after that. So the food truck came I think around 2022 or 2021. And and so we were doing pre2020.We were doing like the Grace Citywide Fair. And we're. I think the last year is like 10 or 12,000 people showed up at that. And we were doing lots of events.Once again, we wanted to be out in the community and building a brand. And we were just lugging deep fryers in the transit and on trailer and tents. And then this food truck really just fell in our laps.And so we weren't necessarily looking to get in the food truck business, but this truck showed up. Cardinals had built the truck, wanted to had it for a few years and then built Ballpark Village and didn't need it anymore.We don't need this truck anymore. And a buddy of mine, his mom was the. Is the assistant to the owner of the Cardinals and he told me about the truck.And then of course I called Adam and I was like, bro, how are you not going to tell me the Cardinals have a food truck that they Want to sell? I didn't think you'd be interested in it. Are you? I was like, I'll set it up. We met with them and we buy this truck and they. It's an over engineered.It's a tilt cab diesel truck they bought brand new. So it's got no miles on it still. And had a Craftsman industries build the whole cab on it.And so then we wrapped that thing and threw some fryers in it and then went mobile. And that's been really good.And it's a lot of work and it's annoying sometimes because you take a kitchen that's already high maintenance, you throw it on a vehicle that's high maintenance. Seems like there's always something going on.

Arnold00:37:27

But it's a different kind of atmosphere than in the kitchen, regular kitchen because it's tighter and you're not. You've got to get stuff out quickly right there.

Rick00:37:36

So it's two guys, maybe three guys at a big event. And we run it really lean. We do four things. We do fry, slaw, catfish and tenders and then. And sauces and just focus on that.But everybody loves it because it's like the kids will eat that, the adults will eat that. And we focus on promotional events and buyouts. We're just, we were just at the Missouri Best of market this past weekend.We'll do big events like that, we'll do corporate buyouts, weddings, anything like that. And. And it's been really good and it's fun. And it. When we opened up Crestwood we were able to put the food truck up there, sell food.Leading up to that didn't go as smooth as we hoped. We had some. I think, yeah, we had a bunch of hiccups but. So it wasn't there as long as we wanted it to be there. But it was up there and.And so the food truck's been good. Jackson, he's our point man on it this year. He's been killing it. Shout out to Jackson.He's been doing a great job and I think he'll be a future leader at the company. And. Yeah. And so then, let's see. 2022 was also a very hard time because it was post Covid inflation and prices and staffing was hard at that time. And.And it's crazy to look back at that because right then I was like, man, I don't know if I love this anymore.

Arnold00:38:56

I was like, it's become work.

Rick00:38:58

Yeah, it's become work. I was like. I was like, I don't know what else I would do, though. I'm not gonna. I don't want to go work for anybody. And I don't.Maybe I'll be a project manager or something, I don't know. And we just hunkered down, dude. And kept working the process and praying and eventually got a good team going again. And it slowly felt better.I don't even know what point that happened, but it was like all sudden, it's like, man, I can breathe again.

Arnold00:39:30

Yeah.

Rick00:39:30

And then I started feeling inspired again. And we're like, maybe we should open up another one. And we started looking at places. We were looking in Kirkwood and Webster and South County.I grew up like in Sunset Hills area. Those are very familiar areas to me. I went to high school, Lutheran South. And we're looking at some really cool spots.Some of them were like, okay, man, the rent's really high. Or man, you're gonna put a ton of money into the build out. Or both. The restaurant business is crazy. It's silly.It's not a cheap business into these places. And. And then I'm talking to the guy that's sealing my driveway one day and asphalt driveway a couple hundred foot and he's out there stealing.He's been doing it for a few years and he's, man, you really should talk to Randy over at King Edwards. He really wants to retire and get out of that. And he goes, I do his parking lot over there. And I was like, oh, really?I was like, cool, give me his number, I'll give him a call. And I had met Randy several times. I used to eat there well before I was in the fried chicken business.I don't go out to eat fried chicken at all anymore. Unless it's like, yours. Yeah. Or well, or I'm in a different city trying to see what someone else is doing or whatever. Excuse me.And so I invited him into the grove and we sat down and talked for a while. Turned out he owned the building and turned out he wanted to get out of everything and was ready to retire.So we just worked out a deal right there over lunch and started putting it together and working with banks and doing all the stuff that I love so much to do.

Arnold00:41:02

Yeah. Gosh, you live for that, right?

Rick00:41:05

Dude, I could call my eyes second we get big enough where I could have someone just negotiate deals for me. Gosh, that would be such a huge blessing. It's just terrible, that part of it. And I'm not. I don't like. I actually, I do negotiating.I like getting what I want. But it's the back in the process and then getting all the numbers together and forking. Accountants do a good job at some of that stuff.But so anyway, so we started that whole long. It took forever and the first bank we were working with didn't feel right and it was becoming soul sucking.And so we started working with a different bank at the same time.

Arnold00:41:41

I was like, why not?

Rick00:41:42

Let's see if this could get easier. And it did. And so I was like, let's kick them to the curb at the 1 yard line and start it over with this other bank.So that's what we did and I'm really happy we did. And, and yeah, we built the place out.I think it took us four months to build King Edwards out and we bought the building, which that's a huge blessing and open the doors and it was rocking and rolling and it's grace chicken, chicken and fish. That's what we're going to roll with moving forward. Because we post 2020, we really changed our business model down the grove a lot.We focused more on the chicken. We still have some of the like hearty dinner plates and the burr and the bologna and stuff like that.But like we used to do like a daily menu kind of thing and a different brunch and it's. And the other thing is people in St. Louis, they don't really know what meat and three is.

Arnold00:42:32

Explain it to them.

Rick00:42:33

Yeah, so meat and three is more or less a slang term for a buffet or like a soul food or comfort food restaurant. Right. Where you would have a daily kind of rotating menu and you would just pick a meat and three sides.So fried chicken, cornbread, collard greens and mashed potatoes or whatever. And. And there's. These places are like in Nashville you would have our entire Tennessee, you'd have a Arnold's Country Kitchen as the. And then in.In Atlanta, Georgia you have Merrimack's Tea Room. And there's all these different legendary institutions. And what was, what is cool about them is they're like just simple eateries, right? Hearty food.And what you get is people from all walks of life coming to them for lunch or dinner or whatever.And it just became this like kind of melting pot gathering place of blue collars, lawyers, politicians, like people from all over the community just come there to get a bite to eat.

Arnold00:43:34

Food was the common denominator.

Rick00:43:36

Yeah, yeah, food was a common denominator and. But they're just big networking spaces and so we love that. But here in St. Louis, everybody's Grace is three meats. Grace's meat plus three.We use that plus sign mainly because it just look cooler than like in whatever the little ant is over and, and, and you find the name getting botched or whatever. Maybe it's a good thing, maybe it's not. I don't know. It annoys me.So I'm like, we're Grace Chicken and Fish and we want to do like more of a limited menu. So it's like a smaller footprint restaurant. So Grace Meat and Three always live there in the Grove.But moving forward, Grace Chicken and Fish a little bit smaller kind of footprint. We're like 110 seats and 24 outside. Down in the Grove, Crestwood's like 48 inside, 24 outside. Something like that.

Arnold00:44:25

Crestwood's tighter.

Rick00:44:26

Yeah, we might go a little bigger than that. That was a little. It's pretty tight. But it's been great. And Crestwood's been very welcoming. We hit like a totally different market of people.You get some people that they're like, oh man, I'm so happy you're out here because now I can just come more. Whereas I didn't get down to the Grove very often.Or we got so many more people that just never went down to that area and they're like, didn't know who we were. And then they used to King Edwards.

Arnold00:44:57

Right.

Rick00:44:57

And so now they like love it.

Arnold00:44:59

And that used to be an IHOP?

Rick00:45:01

Yeah, 1962.

Arnold00:45:03

Back in the day.

Rick00:45:03

Yeah. It's pretty cool.

Arnold00:45:07

So tell me about the catfish.

Rick00:45:09

Yeah, so the catfish. I grew up going fishing and our neighbor was a huge fisherman and he would catch all this fish and he would soak it in bush beer.And so that's the way I grew up eating fish. That's the way my mom prepared it. That's the way we grew up doing it.And then I would go setting trout lines with friends and we would catch these big catfish and you would trim the bloodlines out of them. So that's a dark colored meat. It's no good. And then you just cut it into strips right on the bass.And so everybody's like, why is your catfish, Are they fillets or are they nuggets? And I'm like, they're fillets, but they're split fillets. That's why we do that, because that's just the way I grew up cutting catfish.And then we soak it in beer and then we use our, what we call our poultry and fish seasoning. It's the same seasoning that goes on the chicken marinade. But it's a little bit different marinade because we just use bush beer.And that's got like habanero, cayenne, black pepper, garlic, some other seasonings. It's got a lot of stuff.

Arnold00:46:09

And it's not the hot stuff.

Rick00:46:11

It's not the hot stuff. That's a different seasoning.

Arnold00:46:13

Right.

Rick00:46:13

But it's. This is the base of our marinade.

Arnold00:46:17

Right.

Rick00:46:17

And so bush beer, the chicken and poultry, or the poultry and fish seasoning, we soak it in that. And then our dredge is a cornmeal dredge. It's got some flour and some cornstarch and a little bit of red chili in there as well.And we just take it from the bush beer. We go right in there, toss it around, and then fry that stuff up crispy. And it's really crunchy and light.And not the fact that it has a starch and the flour and it lightens it up a little bit. It's not like too corn mealy, but it's still got some really good crunch to it. The beer takes out any kind of like catfishing ish. More or less.Say it's muddy or say it's. I don't really get that with catfish. It does taste different than other fish and.And that kind of cleans it up a little bit and it also firms up the flesh of it. And then we fry that stuff up and we've got another seasoning. We put on all of our chicken and fish. It's called. We call it our magic seasoning.It's more or less like a seasoning salt and that's how we do that.

Arnold00:47:16

But it's real catfish.

Rick00:47:18

Real catfish. It's not Mississippi farm rice.

Arnold00:47:20

That's company is big deal.

Rick00:47:22

Superior catfish, it's a big deal. Which they're a great company, family owned company.

Arnold00:47:28

Just river to table.

Rick00:47:30

It is. Yeah. We were buying wild caught out of North Carolina for a while, but that got tough too. And then we found superior and just rolled with that.But yeah, a lot of places will sell you sway, which is much cheaper and much dirtier product. We don't. The price reflects that. So if you're like, man, this catfish is expensive.

Arnold00:47:51

It's because it's real catfish.

Rick00:47:52

Because it's real catfish. Sorry if I'm. No exposing anyone's dirty little secret out there. But it happens a lot. Even the purveyors will tell you.They go, man, you guys buy more catfish than anywhere.

Arnold00:48:06

That's. It's a great meal. You can get it On a sandwich you can get several. One piece, two piece, three piece.

Rick00:48:12

Yep. And we do nuggets too now. True nuggets.

Arnold00:48:16

Okay, cool, cool.

Rick00:48:16

But yeah, that's the. Down at the Grove especially, we sell like just as much catfish as we sell chicken down there. It's crazy. It just took off.And then we've got differentiating items at the two restaurants. So the Grove, like you said, you got the burger, the bologna. We do ribs down there. We'll do hearty dinner plates.We've got like pork belly burnt ends this month. Our lunch special will always get ran at both restaurants moving forward.

Arnold00:48:42

Okay, that's interesting.

Rick00:48:43

So we're doing like a clocktober fest fried chicken sandwich. What is on it? Pimento cheese, bread and butter, pickled cabbage, hot honey mustard, pretzel bun, candied bacon. So that's at both locations.

Arnold00:48:55

I've got to wipe my mouth, I'm drooling.

Rick00:48:56

There you go. At Crestwood we have beer battered cod, which is really good. We do this rice flour tempura e beer batter. It gets really good and crunchy.And then we've got like some green chili hush puppies down there that are quite delicious. So each restaurant's got a little bit of a differentiator.

Arnold00:49:16

And on the website, the pictures and the video is so good you almost want to lick the screen or dig into it there. And folks, the website, by the way, is STL grace.com or ordergrace.com if you want to order some food and pick it up or have it delivered.

Rick00:49:34

Yep. There is a delivery button on the website and yeah. And then.And we also have our holiday store which you can get through the website, but it's like ordergraceholiday.com and so coming up, Thanksgiving orders will be going live here shortly. Very shortly.

Arnold00:49:49

So got to check that out, folks.

Rick00:49:51

Do sells out quick, so get your orders in.

Arnold00:49:54

Rick, thanks for coming in today and talking to us. This has been great. We got your whole life story now on audio and it's going to be out for the world to know.

Rick00:50:00

You got the last. That's like literally the last 25 years of my life in what, an hour?

Arnold00:50:06

In an hour, right?

Rick00:50:07

It's a lot.

Arnold00:50:08

You're very good, sir. Thank you. Well folks, that's all for this hour. We want to thank you for listening.If you've enjoyed this episode, you can listen to additional shows@stluntune.com. consider leaving a review on our website, Apple Podcast, Podchaser or your preferred podcast platform.Your feedback helps us reach more listeners and continue to grow.We want to thank Bob Berthicel for our theme music, our sponsor, Better Rate Mortgage, our guest, Rick Lewis and co host Mark Langston, who is on assignment. And we thank you for being a part of our community of curious minds. St. Louis in tune is a production of Motif Media Group and the US Radio Network.Remember to keep seeking, keep learning, walk worthy and let your light shine. For St. Louis in tune, I'm Arnold Stricker.

Rick00:51:07

Sam.