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[FOOD NEWS]
Food Seen
e Fattened Caf fosters collaborations for Filipino American History Month
Written by CHERYL BAEHR
For the Fattened Caf owner Charlene Lopez Young, Filipino American History Month is not simply about celebrating the contributions that Filipino Americans have made in the growth and development of the United States; it’s about recognizing their role in the nation’s present.
“For people like me who were born in the United States but have Filipino parents, we always live in this tension that we are not Filipino enough but not American enough,” Lopez Young says. “This month is so great because it helps people like me who identify as that feel a little more seen, whether that is in the food scene or just the acknowledgment that Filipino Americans live in the United States and are Americans.”
As a Filipino American business owner, Lopez Young — together with her husband and co-owner Darren Young — embraces the platform the Fattened Caf has given her to bring representation to the St. Louis food community and beyond. Through their regular popups, residency at Earthbound Beer and year-old consumer-packagedgoods brand of the same name, Lopez Young and Young are able to, in her words, normalize Filipino cuisine and integrate it into the regular rotation of what people are eating, rather than having it be a niche cuisine only thought of one month out of the year.
However, Lopez Young sees Filipino American History Month as a step toward this goal. That’s why she and Young have been working with local chefs and restaurateurs on a host of collaborative dishes that showcase the beauty of Filipino cuisine.
“I want more people to be aware of our identity and increase representation in any way that we can,” Lopez Young says. “What we have access to is the food scene. That is why we are bringing about all these collaborations with restaurants that St. Louisans frequent. They already have good food, but we wanted to see what it would look like to have access to our food and to normalize it.”
Lopez Young and Young kicked off their Filipino American Heritage Month celebrations by collaborating with the popular barbecue brand Salt + Smoke. The pair have also been working with Gerard Craft and his team at both Bowood by Niche and Fordo’s Killer Pizza on two different dishes: a longganisa rice and eggs brunch dish and a longganisa and egg pizza, respectively. For Lopez Young, the experience of seeing Filipino food represented at these establishments was moving.
“I can’t tell you what it felt like when I went to Bowood and had the longganisa, eggs and rice,” Lopez Young says. “I almost cried, because here was this restaurant that was not Filipino, but it was serving a Filipino dish. They sold out within the first two hours of them having it; that means not just Filipinos were buying it, but everyone was enjoying it. It made me feel like who I am matters and that people were welcoming of it.”
In addition to the Bowood and Fordo’s collaborations, which ended October 16, the Fattened Caf is teaming up with three other area businesses for Filipino-inflected specials that run through the end of the month. These include Nudo House, which has created a longganisa bahn mi, Buzz’s Hawaiian Grill, which is offering longganisa musubi (musubi is a traditional Hawaiian dish) and La Patisserie, a Florissant bakery that will be serving a Filipino brunch.
“This really normalizes the food we grew up with and makes people feel like Filipino Americans are part of the food culture of not only St. Louis but of the United States,” Lopez Young says. n
is month, the Fattened Caf is collaborating with Salt + Smoke, Fordo’s Killer Pizza and more. | MIRANDA MINGUIA
On the Move
Yapi Mediterranean Subs and Sandwiches is moving to the Central West End
Written by CHERYL BAEHR
For the past six years, Lisa and Armin Grozdanic have been spreading sandwich joy to south St. Louis with their restaurant Yapi Mediterranean ubs and andwiches, first at a storefront in Southampton, which they eventually relocated to St. Louis Hills. Now the husbandand-wife team is yet again preparing to move Yapi to an entirely different part of town.
In an interview with the Riverfront Times, Lisa Grozdanic confirms that she and her husband closed their St. Louis Hills location on September 17 in preparation for Yapi’s new chapter — a storefront on the eastern edge of the Central West End on Vandeventer Avenue, diagonal from City Foundry. The new Yapi, which Grozdanic anticipates will open on Saturday, October , will fill a void left by the former Mediterranean restaurant Yiro/Gyro.
“We’re serving everything from gyros to cevapi to buffalo chicken sandwiches and gyro salads,” Grozdanic says. “It’s Americanized style, but it’s still halal.”
As Grozdanic explains, she and her husband had been talking about moving Yapi for a while but never had any firm plans to do so. However, Grozdanic would regularly drive by the vacant Yiro/Gyro space during the course of her work with the Islamic Foundation of Greater St. Louis. Located in the same neighborhood as the foundation, the vacant storefront seemed like prime real estate thanks to its proximity to Saint Louis University, Cortex, IKEA and City Foundry, so Grozdanic mentioned it to her husband, who didn’t immediately think much of it. When it was still available this past Ramadan, she revisited the idea with him, and this time, he was on board. “We believe that what is written for us will be ours, and what is not written for us will not be ours,” Grozdanic says. “The fact that it was still for rent, and I had mentioned it more than one time, made us realize it was meant to be.”
Fans of Yapi can rest assured that the menu will be nearly identical to what the Grozdanics have been serving for the past six years in south St. Louis. However, as Grozdanic explains, the format will be different; instead of full service, the restaurant will be a fast-casual format to cater to the on-the-go energy of the area. She and her husband are also considering offering a very simple, takeand-go breakfast and coffee option, though they are still working out what that will look like.
“It will be very small, readymade breakfast from like 6 to 9 [a.m.],” Grozdanic says. “Right now, there is really nowhere for college students to grab coffee and breakfast sandwiches.” She’s thrilled that this move will introduce a new crop of diners to Yapi, but she remains thankful to the loyal customers who have made the restaurant the success it is today. Already, many have said they’ll make the trek across town to the new location, and she notes that their support has been so vital getting their business through COVID-19 and also helping them during a very di cult personal time when they lost their eightyear-old son in January of 2020.
“If we can get through COVID and losing our son right before COVID, then it feels like the restaurant industry must be written for us,” Grozdanic says. “When God closes one door, he opens another. It really was meant to be.” n
Lisa and Armin Grozdanic look forward to Yapi’s next chapter. | CHERYL BAEHR
[FOOD NEWS]
Fly & Dine
Kingside Diner adding new location in St. Louis airport
Written by BENJAMIN SIMON
Kingside Diner, the popular chessthemed restaurant, is readying to add one more outlet to its growing brand. Owner Aaron Teitelbaum confirms that he will soon open an additional location in the St. Louis Lambert International Airport.
The airport commission approved the Kingside site during its monthly board meeting on October 5. The diner, situated in concourse C, will open in March 2023. It joins sit-down and express locations in Clayton, the Central West End and the Loop. Teitelbaum says the process has taken over a year and a half.
“It just seemed like it’d be good brand recognition for us,” he tells RFT. “We do want to grow the brand, the express brand especially. We felt like hotels and airports are good for us because it has a captive audience and built-in clientele.”
But Teitelbaum says people shouldn’t expect any significant differences from other Kingside Diner restaurants.
“The food and service and decor will represent who we are 100 percent,” he says.
The forthcoming airport location is one of many recent additions to Kingside over the past three years. In April 2021, the business moved to the corner of Euclid and Maryland in the Central West End, across from the World Chess Hall of Fame.
That move has made a huge difference, Teitelbaum says, noting it doubled sales and introduced a late-night dining option.
Then, in September 2022, the business opened its first Kingside Express spot in the Loop, with a focus on pickup and delivery.
Kingside’s centrality in St. Louis stood out to the airport, Teitelbaum says. “[The airport] really liked the idea of local,” he explains. “Diners are starting to be a big brand for airports, so at least [airports are] looking for them because they really feed a lot and there aren’t many.”
Teitelbaum says he’d like to expand to more airport terminals in the future. But for now, they’ll start in St. Louis.
“I wanted it to be in my hometown first, learn the ropes,” he says. n
