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click to enlarge BRADEN MCMAKIN Dave McCreery operated Tower Grove Creamery for years, but now the storefront at South Grand Boulevard and Arsenal Street is dark.

In the mid-1980s Dave McCreery, now 82, was drinking with one of his fellow Moolah Shriner clowns at a Shriners Temple in St. Louis when his pal, who worked construction, said that he was thinking about buying a building for sale on South Grand Boulevard.

McCreery had built a successful career in the insurance business and thought that the two-story building across from Tower Grove Park at the corner of Grand Boulevard and Arsenal Street sounded like a good investment.

“I got to look at it, and I thought, well, you know, why not?” McCreery recalls.

His pal in the construction business was integral to fixing up the building, which McCreery describes as being a mess when they bought it. But the partner soon got busy with other projects, so McCreery bought him out and found himself the sole landlord to the building’s colorful cast of tenants.

On the second floor, above the washing machine repair man and the Salvation Army, a populist group affiliated with the Socialist Party of America had its St. Louis offices.

“That was during the Cold War,” McCreery says, “and all their literature came from Russia.”

There was also a group called the Rosicrucian Society, which, per Wikipedia, refers to a European spiritual and cultural movement that arose in Germany circa 1610 when a pair of anonymous texts announced “a thitherto unknown esoteric order.”

In south city in the 1980s, being a Rosicrucian meant that a few times a month you got together with your fellow men and women of the order, donned white robes and spent all night banging on a gong.

“The gong was probably about five feet in diameter,” McCreery says. “And when they hit that thing, it would reverberate throughout the entire building.”

As McCreery recounts all this, his words are punctuated with an easygoing chuckle that seems to sum up his personality. The man can’t help but laugh, which is just one of the many things about him that everyone who works with him seems to find endearing.

Despite being in the landlord game for more than 35 years, however, there was one tenant that the occultists and the communists hadn’t prepared McCreery for: the waffle man.

click to enlarge BRADEN McMAKIN South Grand is a popular thoroughfare for international dining.

The socialist outfit in McCreery’s building regularly invited left-wing political candidates and European writers to lecture from a socialist perspective, but they were hardly the only counterculture types in the neighborhood in the 1980s. South Grand denizens have always had a healthy appetite for banding together to thumb their nose at authority.

When the alderman at the time, John Koch, tried to blight a stretch of South Grand from Flora Court to Magnolia Avenue, the owner of Panama Red’s Cafe (where Pho Long now is) led the effort to recall the alderman.

When the parent company of Jack in the Box fired a popular manager at its South Grand location, the workers staged a protest.

The street has also been a hub for the offbeat. A local painter opened the Grand Gallery South (across the street from what is now an urgent care) as a space to showcase the work of young artists and stage exhibitions such as Foreign Influence and Edible Art. The latter was billed as “an art exhibit viewers can eat.”

The international cuisine that defines modern day South Grand is in large part thanks to Jay’s International Foods, which has its roots in the 1970s when Jay Prapaisilp immigrated from Thailand and opened a small corner store catty-corner from what is today Cafe Mochi.

“We just had some basic Thai stuff, some Chinese stuff,” says JoJo Prapaisilapa, Jay’s nephew and the current co-owner of Jay’s. “Eventually our Mexican friends wanted some stuff from their home country. Vietnamese refugees were popping up, so we stocked some stuff for them. It kept growing and growing.”

The store grew so much that it eventually moved down Grand to its current location, encompassing half of an entire block.

A 1994 article in the Post-Dispatch credited Jay’s as the “anchor for the neighborhood’s revival.” South Grand was by then home to many of the Thai, Chinese, Vietnamese, Middle Eastern and Mexican restaurants that still to this day define the vibrant, diverse dining strip.

However, that didn’t mean that McCreery was on a glide path finding tenants. In the early 2000s, one business after the next struggled to find longevity in the anchor space of McCreery’s building: the storefront directly at the corner of Arsenal and Grand. McCreery knew how important it was to have a vibrant presence on that corner, given that it was the entryway for the entire South Grand business district. He recalled that in 1986 there had been an ice cream shop in the building. He and his wife Beulah Ann thought to themselves, with the same optimism that led McCreery to buy the building, why not run an ice cream shop themselves?

click to enlarge BRADEN MCMAKIN Dave McCreery has been a landlord on South Grand since the 1980s.

For 12 years, the couple ran the much-beloved Tower Grove Creamery. During those years, it was a particular point of pride for McCreery and Beulah Ann that they had low turnover among their staff of mostly students who worked at the shop part time.

“We never had to advertise for help,” McCreery says. “Because students would be working for us, and they would go back to campus with $25 in their pocket in tip money. And the other kids said, ‘Well, where’d you get that?'”

When the McCreerys decided to close down the shop last year, they did so under the impression that a Boardwalk Waffles and Ice Cream would be occupying the space in a matter of a few weeks. McCreery said that he stopped by the Maplewood Boardwalk location a few times, where he saw the waffles-and-ice-cream concept in action. He thought that having one of them open in his old space would be perfect for the loyal following the McCreerys had built.

When Boardwalk owner Eric Moore opened that first location in Maplewood in 2017, he told Sauce Magazine that the business was an homage to his days growing up in New Jersey and visiting the Jersey Shore and its boardwalk, where he used to buy scoops of ice cream sandwiched between two waffles.

By August 2020, Moore’s Maplewood location was such a success that he moved it into a larger space just down Manchester Road. Soon thereafter, a second Boardwalk Waffles opened in south county on Telegraph Road. Last September, Moore told reporters he was planning three more spots in quick succession.

Behind the rapid expansion, however, Moore and Boardwalk’s parent company, BWAIC LLC, were facing lawsuit after lawsuit for unpaid rent. In May 2022, when Moore signed the contract with McCreery for the space on South Grand, he’d already been sued in January by his Maplewood landlord for $25,000 in unpaid rent. In March 2022, a Midtown landlord also sued for unpaid rent for space leased in the Metropolitan Artist Lofts near the Fox Theatre.

Moore says that he’s worked things out with the Midtown landlord and that everything is “just fine” in Maplewood. In March 2023, the Maplewood landlord won a default judgment against Moore for $36,380.

“There’s nothing more in the world that I would like to do than to open that store and serve the community, so the community can understand what Boardwalk is all about,” Moore says.

click to enlarge KATHERINE TURNER Eric Moore (left) owns Boardwalk Waffles.

In addition to the lawsuits from landlords, multiple former Boardwalk Waffles employees tell the RFT that their paychecks were often late.

Kyler Asher, 19, started working at the Maplewood location last year and said that the problems started when his third paycheck was two weeks late. Also, the store was chronically understaffed, and Asher found himself scooping ice cream solo most shifts.

“First, a dude comes in. And then like, five other people come in. Then a group of high schoolers, and [the line] is 20 deep. And I’m like, ‘Oh, my God, what is going on here?'” Asher says. “And the waffles take two, three minutes to cook, and every single person there is ordering a waffle.

“It was kind of stressful,” he adds. “I’d have 20 people waiting in line. And I’m the only one behind the counter.”

Alexandra Swisher worked at both the Maplewood and Soulard Boardwalk locations starting in 2021 and says that her checks were late at times, but she always ultimately got paid. However, she recalls vendors frequently calling the stores looking for money they said Boardwalk owed them.

“[Moore] was dodging payments from the Ice Cream Factory for the ice cream he was serving,” Swisher says. “And we were getting phone calls all the time from their lawyer.”

Katherine Turner worked as Boardwalk’s accountant for two and a half years starting in late 2020.

“We were having to scramble. It was absolutely absurd. There was no money in the bank. I was having to pull it out of thin air out of my pocket,” she says. “Chaos would be a kind word. I enjoy chaos. This was a travesty.”

She says that Moore used her as a buffer between him and the employees and vendors owed money. She says that when any problem arose, her instructions were always to “take care of it,” which meant doing anything other than paying up.

According to Swisher, “The consensus between most of the employees was like, ‘How long is this company going to last?'”

“Every employee has been paid,” Moore says. “Nobody’s owed any money. And yes, during COVID, for two and a half years, there was some delay.”

click to enlarge BRADEN MCMAKIN People live, work and play on South Grand Boulevard.

By April, almost a year after Moore signed the lease for the space at Grand and Arsenal, McCreery had only been able to collect one month’s rent, and according to McCreery’s attorney Matt Ghio, Moore was essentially using the space as storage for his other operations.

“He’s not open to the public. He’s been using the space as a freezer and refusing to leave or pay rent,” Ghio says.

“We offered to basically pay him $5,000 to leave, and he won’t do it. He keeps saying he wants to stay and make everything right,” Ghio adds. “Given all the other financial troubles he’s clearly having. I’m surprised. He wouldn’t take [the money].”

More than the missing money, the McCreerys are pained by the empty storefront at the entryway to South Grand, a community that means a lot to the couple.

click to enlarge BRADEN MCMAKIN South Grand has a lot of character.

In April, McCreery felt so bad about the empty space that he hung a banner up. “Friends & neighbors,” the banner reads. “We apologize for our corner shop and appreciate your patience as we work to bring in a viable business to serve you.”

McCreery tells the RFT that he wanted to apologize to the neighborhood. He says he knows that the empty retail space hurts other businesses. “I felt I probably should have put the sign up sooner,” he says.

He adds, “The damage to the neighborhood really hurts.”

For his part, Moore previously told the RFT that the McCreerys are “too emotionally attached to the space.”

Natasha Bahrami, of Salve Osteria on South Grand, agrees with Moore in one sense: McCreery does care deeply about the building and surrounding neighborhood.

“He’s taking it so personally because his place is the entrance of South Grand,” she says.

Speaking of Moore, Bahrami adds: “If you’re going to be there, be there. Open something, do something, If not, you’re taking an opportunity that many people want: to be down here.”

Bahrami adds that it’s no surprise to her that the vacant storefront is incredibly painful for McCreery. “He knows how hard the neighborhood has been working to fill voids here, to make fresh starts, to really create an environment that is welcoming,” she says.

Another person with only good things to say about McCreery is Mo Costello, the owner of Mokabe’s coffee. She has been McCreery’s tenant for 29 years.

“He blew it,” she says of Moore. “You know this guy blew it because he could have had some help with Dave. He would have had some build-out help. It’s really a shame.”

Costello says that when her coffee shop expanded, McCreery paid for the construction. In the early days of the pandemic in 2020, he told her not to worry about paying rent, and then when he started asking for it again, she said he gave her a discount.

“I might add that with this building being empty next door, he’s continued to give us a discounted rate because it’s bad for my business to have the empty space,” she says. “I don’t know that that’s a routine thing that happens. Dave has our backs.”

Costello says that during the past few years in particular, having McCreery as a landlord has made an incredibly difficult time a little less trying.

“We’re still trying to figure out how to be post-COVID,” she says. “To be perfectly honest. It’s very weird.”

click to enlarge BRADEN MCMAKIN Danni Eickenhorst is the CEO of HUSTL Hospitality Group which owns Steve’s Hot Dogs on South Grand.

To borrow Costello’s phrase, South Grand has had a very weird couple of years, of which the Boardwalk Waffles saga is just the latest chapter.

For instance, Tribe Dispensary set up shop on Grand Avenue across from Tower Grove Park, but it has yet to sell a single joint.

La Crazy Margarita opened in February in a spot that had been the longtime home of Mekong Vietnamese restaurant, but two months in, the owners of La Crazy Margarita are still waiting for their liquor license so they can sell that inaugural marg.

Last fall, an acclaimed chef opened a much-hyped dim sum restaurant on Hartford just off South Grand, but the enterprise lasted less than two months after said acclaimed chef was arrested for domestic violence.

Then there have been the myriad incidents of traffic violence, from which no part of St. Louis has been spared but that have acutely affected South Grand.

In July, a motorist killed a pedestrian at South Grand Boulevard and Juniata Street just two blocks away from where South Grand’s Pocket Park was hosting a community movie. In September, a person driving a Kia collided with and killed a bicyclist on South Grand by Tower Grove Park. October saw another fatality from traffic violence near the strip. That same month, activists put up “complimentary helmets” along the street, suggesting pedestrians wear them before crossing. The combination public art/protest was meant to shame city leaders to do something about traffic safety.

Steve’s Hot Dogs migrated from Tower Grove East to South Grand Boulevard in 2021. Co-owner Danni Eickenhorst tells the RFT that while COVID-19 wreaked havoc on restaurants on the strip just as it did everywhere, at least South Grand was surrounded by places where people live rather than where they work. Restaurants that only catered to workers on their lunch breaks were all but doomed, as were many eateries located in retail districts like shopping malls, to which people had to drive.

“We were really fortunate that we were able to run Steve’s on a skeleton crew,” Eickenhorst says. “We were able to pivot a million times to continue to keep serving people, and we sort of made a pact early on as the owners: We’re not closing for any reason, period — unless the city makes us. Steve [Ewing] worked shifts. I worked shifts. My son worked shifts. It was a struggle, but it’s why we’re OK now.”

Whereas Eickenhorst and Ewing were game to meet the moment, many other business owners who had been at it for decades and were already mulling retirement decided that COVID-19 was their cue. Vietnamese restaurant Pho Grand, a mainstay on the strip since 1989, announced it would be closing in June of 2022. Two months later, the City Diner, which had been open on South Grand since 1992, closed up shop as well. Thai restaurant King & I, on South Grand since 1983, announced in October it was headed to the county.

click to enlarge BRADEN MCMAKIN Rachel Witt is the executive director of the South Grand Community Improvement District.

Rachel Witt, the executive director of the South Grand Community Improvement District, says that there are 70 storefronts in the business district, which stretches from Utah Place to Arsenal Street, and that right now 59 of them are occupied.

The space that used to be AJ & R pawn shop is a sore spot for Witt, as the owners are asking a lot of money for it and have done very little to keep the property from crumbling into an eyesore. She’s also less than thrilled about the Boardwalk vacancy, which she says is definitely a blow to people’s perception of the strip.

“But the district is actually performing very well,” she says. “Our businesses and our revenue are up. There are a lot of new exciting businesses opening and new launches. So good things are happening. It’s just we’re still in that weird flux since the pandemic with stability of businesses and getting businesses open.”

The fabric of South Grand has also changed in recent decades in more subtle ways that have nothing to do with waffles or COVID-19.

Asked what has changed the most in 30 years, Costello, the Mokabe’s owner, says that, “Everything has to include family. It’s not a South Grand-specific thing. It’s a societal thing, probably nationwide. Everything has got to be more family friendly.

“When we moved from Kirkwood [in 1993], our hours were 5 p.m. to 1 a.m. We’re a coffee house, and we’ve never had alcohol, but those were our hours. Now our hours are 8 a.m. to 3 p.m.,” she says.

Catering to families is also top of mind for Shanisah Knight, who, along with her husband Jason, is opening a superhero- and comic book-themed diner called Gotham and Eggs where City Diner used to be. She says that despite being predominantly a breakfast and lunch place, they do plan to be open for dinner a few nights a week. “We’re going to be a family environment, and morning hours don’t always work with kids being at school,” she says.

Eickenhorst says that when she set up shop on South Grand, she thought there would be more of a nightlife scene for Steve’s to cater to with their extensive bar. “We were surprised to see that there really wasn’t one,” she says.

“What you used to see on South Grand, or what I used to see anyway — and I can tell you about my nights out — was like a secret club above a Thai restaurant, and those sort of places that are meant for drinking to drink, a kind of club environment,” she says. “I think now people are looking for a place where they can sit and have a conversational cocktail, have a little bit more community.”

Still, both Eickenhorst and Witt say that the nightlife scene is coming back.

Well-known bartenders Michael Fricker’s and Meredith Barry’s “experimental cocktail lounge” New Society had its soft opening on South Grand last month. Former Indo bartender Kenny Marks is set to fill the secret club void with a place destined to soon sit above La Crazy Margarita. When Lulu’s Local Eatery reopened for indoor dining under new ownership in April, it did so with a full bar and expanded craft cocktail menu of drinks inspired by musicians and their songs — everyone from Neil Young to Lady Gaga to Lil Wayne.

Eickenhorst says that as of last week, Steve’s is staying open until 10 p.m.

“As we go along, we are seeing more and more bar business over time,” she says. “It’s continuing to come back.”

“I think 2023 is going to be the year that we really hit our stride,” says Witt.

click to enlarge BRADEN MCMAKIN McCreery hung up this banner to apologize for his storefront at Grand and Arsenal remaining empty.

Last September, McCreery sued Moore and Boardwalk Waffles, trying to evict them from the building on Grand and Arsenal. The lawsuit alleged that Moore’s rent checks had bounced and that Moore refused to leave.

In March, Judge Lynne Perkins ruled against McCreery in his suit against Moore, writing that the lease Moore signed “does not provide for early termination,” and without the lease being terminated, Boardwalk Waffles and Moore can’t be said to be illegally occupying the space.

McCreery asked for a new trial in the circuit court with a new judge, and on April 19 walked into the courthouse downtown, smiling as always. Along with his attorney Matt Ghio, McCreery huddled with Moore, whose lawyer wasn’t present.

The three of them failed to come to any sort of agreement, though, and Judge Michael Colona set the matter for a bench trial on May 19.

“It’s a pain in derriere, there’s no question about that,” McCreery says of the lawsuit. However, litigation has done little to dim his optimistic outlook on things.

“I’ve been doing this for almost 40 years, and 99 percent of the people I’ve worked with who’ve been tenants have been very, very good,” he says. “They’ve been excellent business people. We’ve had excellent relationships.”

Prior to the imbroglio with Boardwalk Waffles, it seems the biggest conflict McCreery ever had with a tenant was actually with Costello, the Mokabe’s owner. In the wake of Michael Brown’s killing, Costello and some staff spray-painted “Resist Institutional Racism and Oppression” onto a giant piece of cloth and hung it over the patio at Mokabe’s.

At first, McCreery asked her to take it down. Costello refused. The disagreement lasted a few weeks until McCreery went to Costello and apologized.

He said, “You know, you were right, Mo,” Costello recalls.

The coffee shop owner saw it as an example of someone really taking the time to catch up to what had happened in the city.

“I was grateful he did that,” she says.

And how does Costello feel about McCreery now hanging his own banner?

“Isn’t that funny?” she asks. “We made ours in the back parking lot with a spray can. He had his professionally done.”

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