Short Orders

20

SHORT ORDERS

[ST. LOUIS STANDARDS]

Bar Time

Pat Connolly Tavern has kept generations of St. Louisans in beer and fried chicken

Written by CHERYL BAEHR

When Joe Jovanovich took over Pat’s Bar & Grill in 2015, he did so not because of some longstanding desire to get into the restaurant business. Instead, he upended his life and took on the place out of a responsibility to his family, his neighborhood and his city.

“At the time, I was involved in nonprofit work, but the place had fallen on hard times, and it came down to a question of whether or not it was going to keep going,” Jovanovich says of the bar and grill. “It was definitely a leap of faith, but I felt that taking it over was a way to save and preserve it. It felt like an important piece of my family’s history, but also of the neighborhood’s and city’s history, and I felt that I had to keep that going as a small little slice of St. Louis culture.”

Now operating as the Pat Connolly Tavern, the bar and grill on the corner of Oakland and Tamm avenues has been a part of St. Louis culture for 79 years. Though the place was likely a bar before his grandfather, Pat Connolly, bought the building, Jovanovich traces his family’s involvement back to a bill of sale dated 1942. He’s not sure why his granddad decided to get into the bar business; a native of a small village outside of Galway, Ireland, Connolly had no background in pubs. Instead, he worked in the fields around his family’s home until he immigrated to the United States in 1927. Family connections and an established Irish community led him to St. Louis, where he got a job in one of the city’s many downtown shoe factories until he purchased the Dogtown bar. Why he did, as well as the details of his life between 1927 and 1942, remains a mystery.

The building’s history is a little clearer. Built in 1918 to be a general store, it soon morphed into a soda fountain and apothecary and stayed as such through Prohibition. Jovanovich isn’t sure when the place changed into a bar, but he found a photo from the 1930s that shows a sign on the building reading “Tamm Oak Tavern.” He doesn’t know the details of that iteration, but he is confident it was a bar when his grandfather bought it, since the bill of sale contained details about bar equipment.

For the first several years, Connolly kept the place as it was — from photos, Jovanovich says the scene looked like a soda fountain that someone turned into a bar. However, in the 1950s, Connolly added a kitchen to the back of the building, renovated the existing structure and converted the place into a bar and grill, ushering in a new era that defines the Pat Connolly Tavern to this day.

“At the time, this was one of the first bars and full-service restaurants in the neighborhood,” Jovanovich says. “In the post-war era, it became the trend to have more of a bar and grill in one place; before that, bars and restaurants were mostly separate. When he made the change, he came up with the core staples of the menu the fried chicken, the fried fish, the burgers all get traced back to then. We still have some of the old menus from then, and not much has changed.”

Connolly ran the bar and grill until 1962 when he sold the business, but not the building, to a longtime employee. That proprietor changed the name to McDermott’s, which became well known as the place to go before and after Blues games. In 1980, the owner sold the place back to Jovanovich’s mother and father, who changed the name back to Pat’s and ran it throughout Jovanovich’s childhood. He loved growing up in the bar and relished the mini-celebrity status it gave him in the neighborhood; his basketball team would have its post-

e Pat Connolly Tavern has been part of Dogtown for nearly eight decades. | ANDY PAULISSEN

ere have been a few updates, but the tavern remains a neighborhood standard. | ANDY PAULISSEN

It’s still the place for a bite and a beer. | ANDY PAULISSEN

Generations of St. Louisans have filled the bar over the years. | ANDY PAULISSEN

game meals at Pat’s, and everyone in the area came in to see his dad — even some of the Blues players. Jovanovich and his mother’s life got upended when he was eleven years old. His dad died suddenly from an aneurysm. Not long after, the Blues left the Arena for their new home downtown and took a chunk of the bar’s gameday business with them. Though his mother kept up the place for a while, she eventually decided to sell the bar and grill to a longtime employee while, like her father, retaining ownership of the building. It was a good arrangement, but eventually, Pat’s fell on hard times and was in danger of closing. Instead of renewing the owners’ lease, Jovanovich took over the place and renamed it the Pat Connolly Tavern, reclaiming his family’s legacy and ensuring that the tavern would be around for generations to come.

Jovanovich admits that tavern proprietorship has not been easy, and he feels a constant pressure to strike just the right balance between preserving the restaurant’s history while being mindful of present-day preferences. It’s a juggling act, and he admits that he has not always gotten it right.

“Now, it’s all about finding the balance between keeping that legacy going, but at the same time trying to stay relevant and attract new audiences,” Jovanovich says. “We haven’t quite found the magic formula, but we are still working on that. You have to adapt and pick where you can evolve, but that can be challenging to do without upsetting somebody. It’s definitely been interesting to see how to balance the past with the future.”

The past year has made that balance even more difficult. If Jovanovich was inclined to hang onto certain aspects of the tavern that may have been nostalgic but not profitable, the COVID-19 pandemic has forced him to make tough decisions in order to survive as a business.

“It’s tough because there’s an emotion there,” Jovanovich says. “As a restaurant, we aren’t doing life-saving work, but people form these compelling attachments to bars and restaurants. If you go to the doctor and they say they don’t do a procedure anymore, you say, ‘Wait, but I need that to survive.’ We don’t have chicken gizzards anymore, and people are asking how they are going to survive because they’ve been coming in for decades to get them. It tugs at the heart a little, but we have to look at what keeps the door open because now, every penny counts. I know that’s not a fun, historical message, but it’s honest.”

Still, Jovanovich remains committed to keeping the Pat Connolly Tavern’s legacy going for decades to come. He admits that there are days when things get especially tough, and he wonders why he keeps going, but then he thinks about the customers and how many memories are attached to the place. It fills him with both a sense of pride in what his family has created and a sense of obligation to honor those memories — and guarantee that there is a space for people to create new ones for the next 79 years.

“A restaurant is a commercial thing, and obviously you keep it going because you want to make money to support your family,” Jovanovich says. “But also, it’s like you own a little bit of a museum and there’s that sense of obligation to keep something going because it’s part of a larger story. That’s why we jumped in in the first place, and it’s why we keep it going. Sometimes, you get to the point where you think the world doesn’t need any more fried chicken, but then you realize that it’s not really about the fried chicken or a food item or the fact that the bar looks cool. It’s that all these little things add up to this community, and people have a connection to it.”

[FIRST LOOK]

The Sando Solution

Written by HOLDEN HINDES

At 2nd Shift Brewing, a bright red truck emblazoned with the name Sando Shack sits in the parking lot next to the brewery’s patio seating. Co-owner Amy Guo leans out the window, guiding customers through the menu, while her partner, Dan Jensen, drops chicken and pork into the fryer behind her. The whiteboard hanging on the side of the truck lists the truck’s staples: the Chicken Katsu Sando, the Sweet and Spicy Chicken Katsu Sando, and Korokke, a vegetarian Japanese croquette.

A food truck serving Japanese sandwiches is quite a departure from Guo and Jensen’s original plan, but they are making the most of an unexpected situation. From Seattle, the pair moved back to Guo’s hometown of St. Louis a year ago with plans to open a restaurant called Hello Poke at the forthcoming City Foundry. However, just after they made the move, City Foundry’s opening was delayed, tabling the food stall indefinitely. Guo hopes Hello Poke can open later this summer.

But Guo and Jensen are not sitting around and waiting. In the meantime, they launched Sando Shack, first as a series of pop-ups and now as a truck appearing a few times a week at breweries, events or parks around town. So far, the truck has appeared at 2nd Shift Brewing, 4 Hands Brewing Co., Tower Grove Farmers’ Market, Laumeier Sculpture Park and Cortex Commons.

“We usually try to hit up places that don’t serve food so it can be a good partnership for both parties,” Guo says.

Guo and Jensen appreciated the variety of Asian-inspired cuisine available in Seattle and saw an opportunity in St. Louis to introduce some of their favorite foods to a much less saturated market. The restaurant’s menu is centered around traditional Japanese sandwiches, served on toasted white bread with a generous helping of colorful cabbage slaw and potato chips on the side. Along with the aforementioned options, varieties include Chicken Katsu — a thin chicken breast

Continued on pg 22

SANDO SHACK

Continued from pg 21

cutlet dredged in flour, egg and panko, and then deep-fried — as well as Spicy Shrimp Katsu and a Beef Katsu Burger. Deep frying the burger patty keeps all the juices inside, Guo says.

The truck also offers daily specials, such as a Chicken NanBan Sando, and rotating menu items like the Pork Tonkatsu Sando. As Guo explains, the menu changes every time the truck is out.

“My husband Dan is the one who cooks everything,” Guo says. “He’s been in the restaurant industry all his life. He picked up on the Asian-style cuisine when we were out in Seattle. There’s a lot of Asian-inspired cuisine out there in Washington. One of the things we really liked were the Japanese-style katsu sandwiches, so he picked up on that with his restaurant experience, and then he developed the menu that we currently have.”

As for side dishes, Guo teases that there is more yet to come.

“We want to develop more sides,” Guo says. “We did fries one time, and they were a huge hit. We did togarashi fries, curry fries and nori fries, and people loved those, so we’ll probably bring those back sometime. We’re trying to get exciting new menu items on board and keep developing with these different types of Japanese ingredients.”

Guo, who completed her MBA in 2017, works the business side of the operation and is in charge of running the social media and putting together collaborations, a role that uses her business-marketing background. Though she works the truck every time it is out, she is usually at the window while Jensen prepares the food.

Guo looks forward to filling out the staff of the truck so they can take it out more often. Currently, with a couple of part-time employees, the load is manageable, but they generally spend one day prepping and one day serving.

“Right now, we’re doing two or three events per week, but we want to have that grow to five to six times per week,” Guo says. “If we can have more people, then we could probably bring the truck out twice in one day, at different locations.”

They have also considered setting up at 9 Mile Garden, but Guo wants to focus on getting Hello Poke up and running and maintaining the mobility of the truck for now.

“Looking forward, hopefully next year if we have enough staff, and everything is in order with the City Foundry, we can get out to 9 Mile.”

Guo and Jensen may have not planned to start Sando Shack before moving to St. Louis, but they insist it is not just a way to pass the time until Hello Poke goes live. Instead, the pair are committed to maintaining both brands as long as they can manage.

“We’re trying to set ourselves apart in the sense that it is Japanese-style sandwiches, but we put our own twist on it,” Guo says. “We really focus on the katsu aspect, and it’s like hot-and-savory sandwiches made to order. We want to have fun with the menu and keep it exciting and fresh and bring new menu items out each time.”

To find where Sando Shack will be, follow the truck on Facebook or Instagram (@sandoshackstl) to track down its next pop-up.

Sandos are served on toasted white bread with slaw and potato chips, which come in handy for scooping up runaway slaw. | HOLDEN HINDES