Six-foot chicken greets eaters at new O’Fallon restaurant

The only way Michael Durso was getting back into the restaurant business was if it was with chef Stephen Edwards.

Thursday was opening day for Hop House Southern Eatery, the restaurant marking the duo’s reunion as partners. It’s at 1214 Central Park Drive in O’Fallon.

Menu items include plenty of barbecue dishes, Cajun items, fried chicken, deviled eggs and smoked gouda and jalapeño grits. There’s also a wood-fired oven churning out macaroni cheese dishes and pizzas.

And there’s also lots of craft beer.

“We have great cold beer, that’s what people like,” Durso said. “Nothing goes better with that than good Southern food.”

Decor in the restaurant includes a bar menu written completely in colorful chalk, salvaged stained glass windows hanging from the ceiling and a six-foot tall chicken near the entry door.

The building Hop House occupies was originally built to be Outlaw Blues, a venture that failed in the recession. After that it was a Ravanelli’s and, for just a few months in 2015 and early this year, it housed Fire-N-Smoke.

Durso and Edwards are veterans of the metro-east dining scene.

“Twenty years ago Steve and I ran (Porter’s Steakhouse in Collinsville) together. It was a great steakhouse inside of a hotel,” Durso said. “We had actually planned to leave and open our own place together and it was going to be in Fairview Heights. At the last minute, we didn’t get the building.”

Durso and Edwards parted ways when that deal fell through. Durso opened Manhattan’s in Edwardsville and Edwards re-opened Ravanelli’s.

“Twenty years later, here we are. We’re back in lock step,” Durso said. “It’s a big deal. It came together exactly the way we wanted it do. I swore I would never get back into the restaurant business, and there was only one world where I was going to, and it was working with him. This is going to be a win for us.”

Hop House is open from 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. Monday through Thursday and 11 a.m. to 12 a.m. Fridays and Saturdays. It’s closed Sundays.

This story was originally published July 7, 2016 at 3:53 PM with the headline "Six-foot chicken greets eaters at new O’Fallon restaurant."