Short Orders

[FOOD NEWS]

Written by CHERYL BAEHR

Awickedly popular Halloween-themed pop-up bar is back again this year, promising paranormal vibes, haunted tiki cocktails and luau-inspired food. Corpse Reviver (210 North Euclid Avenue), the seasonal concept from the minds behind Lazy Tiger, Yellowbelly and Retreat Gastropub, will run from Thursday, October 13, through Saturday, October 29, giving guests the opportunity to celebrate spooky season at one of the city’s essential cocktail bars.

According to co-owner and acclaimed bartender Tim Wiggins, this year’s Corpse Reviver, held at Lazy Tiger, will be a bit different from those in years past.

“In the past, we’ve leaned into more traditional Halloween things like pumpkins and stuff like that,” Wiggins says. “This year, we wanted people to feel like they were on this abandoned, haunted tropical island — not take things too seriously and have a fun take on it. We aren’t doing skeletons falling in your face and creepy clowns staring at you. This isn’t a fright fest but more of these haunted, spooky and kind of hokey things.”

Born on Halloween, Wiggins says that he has always had an a nity for this sort of nostalgic, vintage Scooby-Doo/Brady Bunchgoes-to-Hawaii way of celebrating the season. This year, he and his team have tried to capture that feeling by playing up Yellowbelly’s and Lazy Tiger’s existing equatorial themes and adding a haunted surf rock playlist and decorations that suggest paranormal tiki.

But it’s not only the theme that is getting an update this year. Based on feedback he received from last year’s pop-up, Wiggins is adding food to the experience. Yellowbelly’s chef has created a family-style, luau-inspired menu for the occasion,

featuring dishes such as a teriyakistyle cold soba noodle salad, spam fried rice and a pork-butt plate with slaw and crispy potatoes.

As for drinks, Wiggins has been excited to play around with variations of classic tiki cocktails. Look for drinks like the Creature in the Surfer’s Lagoon, made with gin, seaweed, blue curaçao, sour blue raspberry distillate and lime acid, or the Death by Beachball, which pairs hibiscus-infused rums with spicy ginger, fresh banana puree, Campari and pineapple.

“It’s fun because tropical and equatorial and island-style is the world we live in here,” Wiggins says. “It’s fun for me to reimagine what that could mean rather than just playing up allspice and pumpkin and putting smoke into traditional molds. My team and I are excited to try to come up with something a little more unexpected.”

Because of Corpse Reviver’s popularity — the inaugural year’s first-come-first-served setup saw lines around the block, and last year, reservations booked weeks in advance — Wiggins has capped reservation times at 90-minute blocks. Guests are encouraged to secure their spots through Resy for tables that seat up to six.

As they did in previous years, Wiggins and his business partners will be donating a portion of Corpse Reviver proceeds to the ACLU. He’s proud of the fact that the Halloween pop-up has already raised more than $10,000 for the organization over the past three years iggins is confident that this giveback, together with the fun, paranormal vibes, good food and drinks, will make Corpse Reviver 2022 an essential part of October in St. Louis.

“The excitement the community has for it and the fun it brings for the staff — we’re just really happy to bring that back again this year,” Wiggins says. n

[FIRST LOOK]

Written by CHERYL BAEHR

Eat Crow (1931 South 12th Street, 314-934-1400) — the new concept from the owners of the popular Maplewood bar and restaurant the Crow’s Nest — may have a different name than its sister concept and a couple of extra dishes, but co-owner Kenny Snarzyk insists its essence is the same.

“If you walked in here and didn’t know we were related to the Crow’s est, you’d figure it out pretty quickly,” Snarzyk says. “Either that, or you’d think we were ripping them off pretty badly.”

For Snarzyk and his business partners Eliza Coriell and RJ Marsh, the main reason to open Eat Crow was to capture that Crow’s Nest magic for even more diners. It’s something they had been talking about well before the pandemic, but once they reopened for in-person service following an 11-month shutdown, they were so inundated with customers that they figured the time was right to expand. They had no room left to do so in their Maplewood location; after renovating their back patio, the real estate footprint was as large as municipal zoning would allow. With nowhere to grow on site, they figured their best option was to open an additional location.

Snarzyk, Coriell and Marsh searched around town for a place that ticked all the right boxes and happened upon the former Nadine’s Gin Joint in Soulard. They were hopeful that the space would be turnkey, but

they ended up having to do a significant renovation, including filling a sinkhole that was uncovered when they were redoing the patio Finally, after seven months of construction, the three welcomed their first guests to at Crow on uly n addition to the heavy-metal vibe, nar yk, Coriell and arsh carried over much of the Crow’s est menu to at Crow ummus, pork poutine, chili-cheese fries, cheese curds, salad dressings, grilled cheese and the hilly sandwich are all available at the sophomore spot owever, there are several new additions to the menu arsh, who runs the kitchen at the Crow’s est in addition to being a partner in at Crow, built upon his popular mac and cheese at the new spot by changing up the noodles and offering a build-your-own option e also created several versions for guests to choose from including a ot oney option with fried hot-honey chicken, gorgon ola and a ranch dri le, as well as a hilly ac, made with roast beef, saut ed onions, green peppers and cream cheese n addition to expanded mac and cheese offerings, new dishes at at Crow include mini tacos, the lbu uer ue Turkey featuring turkey breast, bacon, cheddar ack, green chili and deep-fried garlic mayo) and the ig asty, which is an open-face roast-beef sandwich with cheddar cheese and horseradish sauce that is smothered in peppercorn gravy nlike the Crow’s est’s thicker burgers, at Crow serves several varieties of smash burgers nar yk feels extremely grateful for the response he and his team have seen to both the Crow’s est and at Crow e credits the success to a happy staff as he notes, neither he nor Coriell had ever owned a restaurant before the Crow’s est and worked their way up in the industry s such, they know how to treat their employees, who, in turn, translate that good-naturedness to their guests ever in my life did figure ’d own any bar or restaurant, much less two, nar yk says t’s pretty intense here, everyone is new, including us ow do you prepare for that e’re ust trying to do as much of what we do at the Crow’s est here and take care of our employees because we love them and want to make sure that they have a good uality of life n

Eat Crow is open Monday through Saturday from 11 to 1:30 a.m. and Sunday from 11 a.m. until midnight. The kitchen closes Monday through Thursday at 10 p.m., Friday through Saturday at 11 p.m., and Sunday at 9 p.m.

[FOOD NEWS]

Written by CHERYL BAEHR

Picture it: St. Louis, 2022. An iconic pizza brand needs a nonna.

Lucia’s Pizza President Scott Ashby and his team were on the hunt for their very own Sophia Petrillo to rep their iconic Mama Lucia’s frozen pizza brand. Dubbed a “Grandma Brand Ambassador,” or “nonna” in Italian parlance, the yet-unnamed spokesperson will serve as the face of the pizza company, “offering wisdom to the next generation and expressing her uncensored opinions on topics of her choice.” The search, which began in August and closed on September 16, aimed to uncover a company matriarch, someone Ashby hopes will connect customers with Lucia’s very own nonna who appears on its frozen pizza labels.

“She’s at the heart of the brand; the original Mama Lucia created the pizza line, and we still use her silhouette,” Ashby says. “A lot of people may not have been around when she was running the business, so we thought we would introduce her to the world to engage the next generation of people coming up who might not be familiar with Lucia’s.”

Founded 40 years ago by Lucia Tumminello, Mama Lucia’s got its start as a word-of-mouth Hill neighborhood staple before going on to become the first St. Louis-style frozen pizza available in grocery stores.

Over the years, the brand has grown to include both its namesake frozen pies and a line of 4 Hands Brewery–inspired pizzas, both of which have endeared themselves to the St. Louis community as a source of edible civic pride. Ashby is hoping to build upon this with a recognizable brand ambassador who will be the face of Lucia’s, a move inspired by the rise of “grandma influencers” on TikTok.

“We [were] trying to find someone with personality,” Ashby says. “She’s probably older, but she doesn’t have to be; she doesn’t have to be Italian, but we want someone who is a little sassy and that we can have fun with.”

According to the application, the nonna gig is a paid opportunity with a minimal monthly time commitment. Those who made it through the initial application process were invited to partake in an in-person interview.

“We want someone who, when she talks, people are going to listen to her,” Ashby says. “It’s one of those things where we will know it when we see it.” n