BBQ Saloon, the barbecue-and-whiskey joint originally slated to open last fall in the old Majestic spot in St. Louis' Central West End, still isn't quite ready to open its doors. The new eatery from the owners of the adjacent Wild Flower Restaurant is still under construction.
But one piece of the puzzle is now in place: Amanda Hammond has come on board to run the drinks program.
Hammond, 31, was until recently the bar manager at Niche, where she worked for seven years. In that capacity, she also took a weekly shift at Niche's sister restaurant, Brasserie, where she got to know the Wild Flower crew thanks to post-shift late-night happy hours. When Wild Flower owners Phil and Tracy Czarnec heard she'd left Niche, they made an offer, and she quickly accepted.
"I'm really excited," Hammond says. "After I saw the space — well, the bar takes up half the restaurant! I'll be going from a bar that sat six people to at least 15 to 20 people."
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Indeed. On a recent weekday afternoon, Hammond and Dave Picard, social media and marketing manager for Wild Flower, gave a tour of the space even as workmen continued to ply their trade. The tiger wood bar is 44 feet long, dominating the restaurant's front room. "I could dance back here," Hammond says of the vast space behind it.
Hammond says she has a commitment from the Czarnecs to give cocktails at BBQ Saloon mixology-level quality, with fresh juices, local spirits and house-made syrups. "It's not going to be Taste or Planter's House," she cautions. "But we're aiming to have the largest collection of whiskey, scotch and bourbon in the neighborhood. And we'll make sure our bartenders know how to make a proper Manhattan."
She's intent on also making the place approachable. Born in St. Louis, Hammond spent most of her childhood and adolescence in northern Florida and has the down-home Southern friendliness that goes with the territory.
Of mixologists who take fifteen minutes to make a complicated concoction, she says, "No one likes waiting that long for a cocktail!" Nor will she be a snob about so-called low-rent drinks. "I love giving people what they want. I'm not going to tell them they shouldn't order it. If they want it, they can have it."
And that's one reason Hammond is so excited to be running the bar program at a barbecue joint after spending her career in fine dining (before Niche, she worked at Larry Forgione's much-lauded An American Place downtown). It's approachable, she says.
Picard interjects. "Barbecue is tough," he says. After all, partisans have strong opinions about what constitutes the best — and they don't always agree.
Hammond just laughs. She has an easy solution for that, she says: Get them drinking.
By the end of the night, she promises, "the only thing people are going to be arguing about is not barbecue, but sex, religion and politics!"
BBQ Saloon, 4900 Laclede Avenue, Central West End, St. Louis, Missouri
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