Perhaps its marketing. I’ve gone to SLU law for 2 years and have never been North of Lindell for anything socially. I’ve never even known there were any restaurants up there TO go to. However, the restaurants in Midtown Alley have been a welcome addition to us students looking for nearby lunch places (as Humphreys and Lacledes are not exactly quality food hotspots).

Well Gary’s hung on in that spot for quite a while, he had live entertainment, and I think that is what helped him stay around as long as he did. He was more like the Jazz Bistro, except there was no cover charge and no drink minumum. One big problem is the parking situation. Another is marketing, I did’nt know anything about the resturant and I live in the immediate area. The steakhouse has a good product at the right price, although I rarely see SLU students frequenting the place. I’m old enough to remember when that area of Grand was very vibrant, and SLU did not own all of the buildings. It’s hard to bring people back, when you run off the people that made the area vibrant in the first place.

I work in Grand Center district and it is simple.

Simple food at a decent cost.

Those of us who work down here full time need a nice place to grab lunch, and not expenseive, small portion fru fru food.

Steak House is nice, but gets old.

This district also draws from the VA center. They also want a fast, cost effective lunch. The SLU kids need cheap too.

The new mid town alley is taking hold and most of us go down there. They have the bbq, pizza, etc. Shakespeare’s was too much of a niche. Reggies Backstage is too, and too slow, too expensive.

The evening crowds are not consistent enough to make it for a restaurant. They need a good day crowd.

So bring us an Eat Rite or City Diner type place and it will boom.

St. Louisans are used to driving everywhere, so it’s not necessarily an advantage for a restaurant to be located next to a large venue. In NYC or Chicago or college towns, restaurants next to venues thrive because there’s a lot of foot traffic, because people walk or take public transportion. In St. Louis, the only foot traffic is from your car to the venue. So because of this mentality, people just drive to the restaurant they want to eat at instead of seeing what’s next to the venue. So to survive, you need more than just location. You need to give people a reason to forgo their regular dining spots elsewhere. Plus you’re forgetting that in addition to the midtown alley, there isn’t exactly a lack of dining choices for people with cars in midtown. The CWE is 5-10 minutes away, as are the restaurants on south grand.

We were going to go there once and it was closed, at what I thought was an odd time to be closed (don’t remember what time exactly), so we never tried again. I don’t think there’s a secret, but I do expect that a restaurant in that location probably has a lot of variability in volume, depending on what’s going on at the Fox, Powell, The Sheldon, and to some extent Chaifetz I guess. And variability can kill a business, unless you learn to control it. The best way is be so great you’re always busy - simple, really!

I ate there once (before the Crosby and Nash concert) in November and was totally unimpressed. I thought the prices were a bit high and the menu not varied. The flat iron steak that I purchased was akin to shoe leather.

Was there late after a show one evening in the last 6 months - found the menu very limited, overpriced, and the food was not very good. Not suprised they are closing. With so many wonderful dinning choices decided that night I would not be returning. It is a shame that the grand theatre distirct can not support a couple of good restaurants.

Why is this “Breaking News”? It has been closed for close to 2 weeks.

Had it been reported anywhere else?

I have worked in Grand Center for many years. The area we’re talking about here is too far north to interest SLU students during the day. The problem we’ve always had with restaurants in this specific area is that they try to go too up scale. Something simple and relatively inexpensive (and reliable) like a Noodles and Company or Bread Company would do well day or evening.