CAFE
19
BEAST Butchery’s smoked meatball sub, pimento smash burger, smoked cauliflower, fries, creamy slaw, Fruity Pebbles treats, Italian beef and snoot sandwich. | MABEL SUEN
[REVIEW]
Making Ends Meat BEAST’s sandwich pop-up, launched as a COVID stopgap, delights in its own right Written by
CHERYL BAEHR BEAST Butcher & Block 4156 Manchester Avenue, 314-944-6003. Tues.-Sun. 11 a.m.-7 p.m. (Closed Mondays.)
T
wo years ago, if you’d have told David and Meggan Sandusky that they would be shutting down barbecue at their Grove restaurant BEAST Butcher & Block, they would have thought you were out of your mind. Barbecue, after all, is why the place even exists — it was David’s success as a pitmaster at his
first venture, Belleville’s BEAST Craft BBQ, that thrust him into the national spotlight and gave him a platform to open more restaurants. It’s more than what he does; it’s who he is. But beyond that, BEAST Butcher & Block was David’s baby. Sure, opening a St. Louis outpost of his barbecue brand made sense business-wise, but the Grove smokehouse was never intended to be BEAST Craft BBQ Part Two. It was his agship, the space where he could indulge in his creativity and push the limits of what barbecue could be — an ambitious, 6,000-square-foot behemoth with a traditional barbecue counter, a butcher shop and, as its centerpiece, a live-fire, test-kitchen, events-space showroom called the Skullery, which was designed to be his playground. COVID-19 had other plans. Like every other restaurant trying to survive during this wretched pandemic, the two-year-old BEAST Butcher & Block was hemorrhaging money. Though David and Meggan had the robust support of their customers and a product
that translated well for takeout, it just wasn’t enough. The high cost of quality meat and sheer size of their Grove operation made for an overhead that was unsustainable when balanced with the reduced money coming in. They desperately tried to keep their staff employed, remaining open even when they couldn’t pay the bills, but eventually there was no denying the fact that they could no longer go on with business as usual. This February, David and Meggan took the bold step of shutting down BEAST Butcher & Block’s barbecue operations — a tough decision, but one that they hoped would save the business in the long run. However, instead of shutting down completely, they decided to rely upon the butchery to serve as a bridge to when they could resume normal operations. In addition to the regular selection of meats, prepared goods and light groceries — part of the business that had actually increased during the pandemic — the Sanduskys decided to offer sandwiches that would take advantage of all the butchery could do.
riverfronttimes.com
It turns out, they can do a lot. Though the menu is small — just six sandwiches and a handful of sides — the butchery does a good job blending BEAST’s barbecue background with quintessential deli-counter offerings. A pimento smash burger, for instance, shows off both the beauty of BEAST’s highquality, freshly ground meat and a little Southern in uence with piquant pimento cheese spread. The cheese oozes into every crevice of the two patties; shaved white onions and bread-and-butter pickles cut through the decadence. The Italian beef is possibly the best version of the Chicago-style sandwich I’ve had. The braised chuck is positively delicate in texture and infused with gentle smoke from being cooked directly over a wood fire. The meat is generously piled onto bread that is crusty on the outside but soft inside so that it acts like a sponge for the au jus and spicy giardiniera that brightens the dish. The total package shows why having a barbecue background amps up a traditional deli offering.
MARCH 31-APRIL 6, 2021
Continued on pg 20
RIVERFRONT TIMES
19
