The building at 1122 Washington Ave. runs all the way through to a patio in back. That layout is what made Oliver Properties think a single tenant was the wrong fit and a hall full of them was the right one. The space used to hold Reign nightclub and Copia Restaurant and Wine Garden. Now it's Wash Ave Food Hall, a 10,000-square-foot room, according to St. Louis Magazine, with two central bars and an indoor-outdoor area under a retractable roof.
The hall announced a soft opening for late October. Its grand opening weekend runs Nov. 5 through 8, with a ribbon-cutting the morning of Nov. 6. KSDK put the project at $6 million.
Almost every food counter is either a spin-off of a restaurant St. Louis already knows or the first permanent home for a business that has been cooking out of a truck or trailer. Downtown isn't getting a brand-new food scene here. It's getting a compact version of the city's existing one, all on one block of Washington Avenue.
Where each counter comes from
| Counter | Where it comes from | What it serves at the hall |
|---|---|---|
| Arzola's Tacos y Más | Arzola's Fajitas & Margaritas, with its flagship in Benton Park and a location in St. Charles | Street tacos, "ultimate" tacos, nachos, empanadas, churros |
| Conefection | The team behind The Fountain on Locust | Cedar Crest ice cream, specialty cones, shakes, floats |
| Steve's Smash | The smashburgers that caught on at Steve's Hot Dogs on South Grand | Specialty and build-your-own burgers, loaded crinkle-cut fries |
| Little BAO | The BAO at 14 N. Central in Clayton | Bao, rice and udon bowls, Japanese curry, gyoza |
| Troit | Jordy Logan, owner of The Moniker at 1000 Washington | Detroit-style pizza, Coney dogs, corned beef sandwiches |
| 787 Subs | Jose and Cynthia Ramos of the Mr. Papas 2 Go food truck | Puerto Rican sandwiches with fried yuca |
| Macis' Prime BBQ | A catering business and mobile food trailer | Smoked brisket, pulled pork, turkey |
| 4 Hands Brewing Co. | Beer partner | Beer on a PourMyBeer self-pour wall |
Seven of those eight names are food counters. Five of the seven trace back to an operator who already runs something somewhere in the region: Benton Park, Locust Street, South Grand, Clayton, and one block east on Washington itself. The other two are mobile businesses getting their first fixed address. 4 Hands Brewing Co. handles the beer. Per St. Louis Magazine, one more vendor was still being finalized as of mid-October, and that one won't need a full kitchen.
Second acts, scaled down for a counter
The spin-offs aren't simply copies of the original restaurants. Each one takes a single idea from its parent and builds a counter around it.
Arzola's is a sit-down fajitas-and-margaritas restaurant in Benton Park, run by owners Ron and Larisa Webb with head chef Adan Melendez. At the hall, the brand drops the fajitas and goes with tacos, nachos and empanadas, which are easier to carry back to a shared table.
Steve's Smash goes back further, to a menu item that outgrew its restaurant. The smashburgers got popular at Steve's Hot Dogs on South Grand, and HuSTL Hospitality gave them a counter of their own. Conefection does the same thing with The Fountain on Locust's ice cream. It's a walk-up dessert window serving Cedar Crest ice cream with scratch-made toppings. Little BAO turns The BAO in Clayton into a fast-casual menu of bowls, curry, popcorn chicken and gyoza.
Troit is the most local of the group. Jordy Logan already owns The Moniker at 1000 Washington, Suite B, a short walk from the hall. His new concept is all Detroit: Detroit-style pizza, Coney dogs, corned beef sandwiches and egg rolls, plus Faygo and Better Made chips.
For anyone who lives downtown, these second acts bring a South Grand burger, a Clayton bao bowl and a Benton Park taco within walking distance, with no drive across town for any of them.
First addresses for cooks who used to move around
The other side of the lineup matters just as much. For 787 Subs and Macis' Prime BBQ, the hall is the first place customers will always find them.
Jose and Cynthia Ramos started the Mr. Papas 2 Go food truck five years ago, and Wash Ave's own news page reports that customers have been asking for a permanent location ever since. Jose trained as a chef in Puerto Rico and worked in fine-dining restaurants and hotels in New York before the family moved to St. Louis nearly eight years ago. The name 787 is one of Puerto Rico's area codes.
"We have wanted for years to bring more of Puerto Rico, our food, our flavors and our culture, to St. Louis," Cynthia Ramos said in a statement reported by KSDK.
The menu centers on La Tripleta Boricua: slow-roasted pork, grilled steak and ham on toasted bread with Swiss cheese, crispy potato sticks and mayo-ketchup sauce. Every sandwich comes with fried yuca in place of fries. There's also a plant-based option called the Bori-Green and a Puerto Rican beef salad inspired by bistec encebollado. 787 Subs took the last full kitchen in the hall.
Macis' Prime BBQ comes out of catering and a mobile trailer. Smoked brisket, pulled pork and turkey are the core of the menu, and the hall will be its first permanent location.
That gives downtown two things it couldn't count on before: sandwiches and barbecue from cooks whose hours used to depend on where they parked.
A room built to keep a group in one place
This mix of established names and newcomers works because of how the hall is designed. St. Louis Magazine reported that guests will be able to order from several vendors in one transaction through an integrated technology platform. If one person in your group wants 787's tripleta, another wants a Little BAO curry bowl and a third wants a Conefection shake, it all goes on one check.
The rest of the plan is built with the same goal in mind.
- A PourMyBeer self-pour wall associated with 4 Hands Brewing Co.
- A dedicated gaming and interactive social area, which the developer describes as a way to encourage longer visits and repeat customers
- Shared seating and year-round programmed events
- The retractable-roof indoor-outdoor space, which carries on from the patio that came with the old Copia footprint
Oliver Properties is the developer, and FIRETEN Hospitality will run day-to-day operations. The project took longer than first planned. When Sauce Magazine covered the announcement in September 2025, the target was spring 2026. By June 2026, the target had moved to October.
The block it lands on
The hall isn't the only new business on its stretch of Washington. Coffeestamp, a coffee company that already had a shop in Fox Park, opened a Washington Avenue location in late September, as reported in St. Louis Public Radio's September openings roundup. St. Louis Magazine's openings tracker puts it at 1228 Washington with a Sept. 25 opening date. That's about a block west of the food hall.
Going the other direction, two more businesses have announced plans for 1007 Washington. The same tracker listed Dorsa Market for October and a speakeasy called At the Moment for fall. Neither has a confirmed opening date yet. Logan's The Moniker sits at 1000 Washington, so one operator now has places at both the east end of this cluster and inside the hall.
Put those addresses together and the 1000 to 1200 blocks of Washington now offer morning coffee at 1228, lunch or dinner from eight counters at 1122, and a drink at The Moniker near 1000. The food hall's lineup brings in cooking from around the region, and the businesses opening next to it are filling in the rest of the block.
Grand opening weekend, by the dates
- Late October: soft opening, as announced by the hall
- Thursday, Nov. 5: grand opening weekend begins
- Friday, Nov. 6, morning: ribbon-cutting
- Sunday, Nov. 8: grand opening weekend ends
Hours haven't been published in the coverage so far, so check the Wash Ave Food Hall site before you head over. The address is 1122 Washington Ave.
If you live downtown and the new businesses on Washington Avenue have you wondering what they mean for your loft or condo's value, the Laura Sanders Team can take a look. Get your free home valuation and we'll show you how buyers are seeing your part of the city right now.
