Visiting one of my accounts in St. Louis earlier this year, they made a suggestion for food and beers at a place not far from their store in the Webster Groves area of St. Louis. They had not been there before, but had heard good things about the place. Always up for a visit to a new restaurant, we took off to go have dinner at The Frisco Barroom.
Opened last July, Frisco Barroom owner John Barr had worked in the restaurant and bar business as a young man. He jumped from the restaurant industry to buying and selling homes and managing properties in the greater St. Louis area. Meanwhile, his wife Kelley Hall-Barr had a burgeoning candle company - K. Hall Designs - that started out as an interior design business. As she made fragrant candles to sell, she began to work on her own line of soaps and skin care products. The skin care products got Hall-Barr's name out there and she soon had people clamoring for her products.
Seeing the opportunity to help grow his wife's business, Barr sold his properties and invested into the company. They soon opened a store - K. Hall Studios - that sold home-goods, home fragrances and personal health care products. After awhile, the Barr's began to distribute the skin care products to thousands of similar stores around the world while increasing the number of K. Hall Studios to four around the greater St. Louis area.
After selling the distribution company and the retail stores in 2015, the Barr's took some time off to figure out what they wanted to do for the next chapter in their lives. John Barr had been thinking about doing some main street renovation in a St. Louis neighborhood and possibly opening a small pub, while Kelley had been thinking about opening her own floral boutique.
A space along Big Bend Boulevard in the Old Orchard neighborhood in Webster Grove had opened up and Kelley took that spot to open Civil Alchemy, characterized as a "modern lifestyle general store" which sells everything from home goods to jewelry to kitchen items to clothing. And just down the street a couple doors, another space opened up when a local health food grocery store The Natural Way closed their doors. John Barr took that spot and began to work on his dream of having a pub with snack foods and dart boards.
As John Barr got more into the design and build-out of his pub, he realized that it could be a spot that was much more than just a pub, but something reminiscent of some of the interesting pubs Kelley and he would visit when they would travel. Workers stripped the floor down three layers to the original pine floor. They restored the original tin ceiling and the brick facade on the front of the building. An unused open area with a gravel floor behind the building was made into an outdoor patio. The upstairs of the building was made into a dual purpose sitting room/private party space with an outdoor balcony. Light fixtures were replications of 1930's standard lighting. After hiring industry veterans Greg Hard as the General Manager, Tim Montgomery as the chef, and Derek Fleig as the bar manager, Barr opened the Frisco Barroom - named after the eastern terminus of the St. Louis-San Francisco Railway, a.k.a. "The Frisco", of which the building was part of the original train station - in early July of 2018.
Located at the corner of Big Bend Blvd. and Log Cabin Lane in Webster Groves (see map), there's a large parking lot behind the bar. The back door to the establishment was next to the outdoor patio. It featured a large fire place and places to sit to enjoy the evening. It was still a little cool when we were there that evening, so there wasn't anyone outside.
Entering the restaurant, we went up to the hostess stand near the front of the building. The large bar was off to the left as you enter the front of the restaurant.
There were two dining areas on the main floor of the restaurant. There was a smaller room off to the side of the bar area that featured a number of tables underneath replica Depression-era chandeliers. They appeared to have sound treatments on the walls of the restaurant to help keep the noise down.
We took a seat at a high-top table table up toward the front of the restaurant. Our server for the evening, a young lady by the name of Maia, came over with food menus for us to look over. I got a Urban Chestnut Zwickel to start out.
The food at The Frisco Barroom could be categorized as Americana with a number of sandwiches, small plate options, a handful of dinner entrees, burgers, and various charcuterie boards that feature in-house smoked meats and seafood, as well as in-house pickled vegetables. We started out with one of charcuterie boards - the Farmers Board - that featured a wonderful pork belly rillette that had a bit of spicy kick to it, as well as some outstanding pickled green beans. The board also featured dry Italian sausage, beef jerky slices, Fontana and asiago cheese, all served with flat crackers and housemade crusty bread. The overall taste of the items on the board were very good, but we were blown away with the taste - and crunchy consistency - of the pickled green beans.
One of the guys suggested getting the poutine. I'm always up for poutine and this was very good. It featured thick cut fries covered in cheese curds and a very good brown gravy. Fresh parsley was sprinkled over the top of the poutine. Like I said, it was very good poutine.
I considered getting the Cornish pasty - a baked pie filled with beef and root vegetables - but I ended up getting the smoked pastrami sandwich on grilled rye with gruyere cheese. The pastrami was smoked in house and it was excellent. After having the poutine, the fries with nothing on them were pretty bland. But I was much more interested in the very good sandwich than the fries.
One of the guys went the pseudo-healthy route with the grilled chicken dinner that came with two sides. For his sides he got wild rice and sautéed green beans. As good as the pickled green beens were, he thought the sautéed green beans were even better.
Below left is the Old Orchard grilled cheese sandwich that one of my guests got. It featured a three-cheese medley of American, smoked gouda, and cheddar cheese with sliced apples and bacon on grilled sourdough bread. He ordered extra bacon for his sandwich and he was more than happy with what he ordered.
Unfortunately, one of my guests didn't care for his meal all that much. He got the French dip sandwich. He thought that the meat would be smoked like the pastrami that I got, but it turned out that it was herb-roasted. It was served on a housemade baguette that was a little too chewy for his liking. He got some gruyere cheese to go on the sandwich and he stated that the sandwich was too bland in taste even with the gruyere. And that was too bad because everyone else enjoyed what we had that evening.
I can't say much of anything bad about my visit to The Frisco Barroom. Open for less than a year, the place isn't all that fancy, but captures the essence of an early 20th century American-style restaurant. While we all enjoyed the poutine and the charcuterie board to start out, three out of the four of us enjoyed our dinners that evening. I know the one dissenter was disappointed with his French dip, but I couldn't have been more happy with my smoked pastrami sandwich. The place had a wonderful selection of liquors and craft beers to choose from. The Frisco Barroom has just entered the rotation of restaurants in the Webster Groves area of St. Louis that I'll go to when I'm in the city.
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