Owners of Beast to open barbecue restaurant in Columbia. It’s their third in the region
The owners of BEAST Craft BBQ Co. in Belleville and BEAST Butcher & Block in St. Louis have announced plans to open a third barbecue restaurant in Columbia in late summer.
Owners David and Meggan Sandusky fully realize that it may seem odd to expand in the middle of a coronavirus pandemic, but they’ve always marched to the beat of their own drummer.
“It’s either genius or insane,” David Sandusky said Monday in a phone interview. “There’s no in-between on this one.”
The new restaurant, BEAST Southern Kitchen & BBQ, will occupy a shopping-center storefront at 1280 Columbia Center. It will serve the same smoked barbecue but add “Southern-inspired dishes that celebrate local farms and heritage breeds.”
The Columbia location also will provide full sit-down service and a full bar.
“BEAST Southern Kitchen & BBQ will introduce a thoughtful cocktail menu with a focus on whiskeys and a late-night food menu for drinking patrons after the dining room closes,” according to a news release.
The Columbia Center space formerly housed Bully’s Smokehouse, where several members of the BEAST management team got their start.
The layout, decor and atmosphere of the new restaurant still is being finalized.
“Meggan and I never wanted carbon copies as we expanded,” said Sandusky, 39, of O’Fallon, who serves as pitmaster. “Challenging others’ expectations is at the core of who we are, and cloning is boring. This is the natural evolution of our brand, and another escalation point for the legacy of our barbecue.”
The Sanduskys founded BEAST Craft BBQ Co. at 20 South Belt West in the legendary Hy-Ho Cafe building in Belleville nearly six years ago and promptly began winning acclaim for their barbecue pork, beef, chicken and turkey.
BEAST Butcher & Block opened last summer at 4156 Manchester Ave. in The Grove neighborhood of St. Louis. The 6,000-square-foot space has six large smokers, allowing several batches of meat to be paired with proper woods and cooked throughout the day.
That location also has “The Skullery” and “The Butchery.” The former is described as “the only exclusive, ‘fire-to-table’ restaurant space in the city, seating guests right in front of house-butchered meats and vegetables cooked on hot coals and carved on a massive custom block.”
The Butchery is a butcher shop with raw meats, produce, eggs, cheeses, prepared items, charcuterie, deli meats and local baked goods. It provides raw meat for BEAST restaurants in Belleville and St. Louis and will do the same for Columbia.
The Butchery recently started offering delivery to Illinois residents with prior-day notice.
BEAST Craft BBQ Co. and BEAST Butcher & Block have been closed to inside dining for nearly three months due to COVID-19 restrictions in Illinois and Missouri, offering carryouts and delivery and recently opening patios to outside dining.
“We could open our dining room right now (in St. Louis) for a smaller capacity with a bunch of rules,” Sandusky said. “But we’re not ready to do that because we don’t feel that it’s safe enough for our clients and staff yet.”
The Sanduskys are using the break from inside dining to convert the St. Louis location into a restaurant with full sit-down service and a full bar. The Belleville location will remain “fast casual” with people ordering at the counter.
Some customers have left angry messages on the BEAST voicemail, promising to boycott the restaurant for not opening and arguing that the owners are buying into “conspiracy theories” about the coronavirus. But the Sanduskys are sticking with a wait-and-see approach.
“I’ve got 75 families to look out for and an infant on the way,” David Sandusky said. “I’m not messing around with this stuff.”
This story was originally published June 15, 2020 at 1:05 PM.
