Chicken, Catfish, and Community: Rick Lewis' Culinary Journey

Rick Lewis is more than just a chef; he's a culinary storyteller whose journey is as flavorful as his dishes. His career began in a mom-and-pop restaurant, where he honed his skills and learned the essence of what it means to create comforting, heartfelt food. Fast forward to today, and Rick has made a name for himself in the St. Louis food scene, with his restaurant, Grace Meat + Three, earning accolades as a beacon of comfort cuisine. This episode is a recipe into his life, revealing how he transitioned from making salads to earning the title of best fried chicken in Missouri by the Food Network.

In our conversation, Rick reflects on the importance of community in the restaurant business and how his culinary philosophy is deeply rooted in connection and quality. He discusses the challenges of running a restaurant, especially during the pandemic, where his innovative takeout window became a lifeline for many in the community. Through laughter and nostalgia, he shares stories of his upbringing, including cooking with his mother and the experiences that shaped his love for food. His commitment to sourcing local ingredients and creating a warm, inviting atmosphere shines through, making it clear that for Rick, cooking is about much more than just the food—it's about the relationships and experiences that come with it.

Listeners will not only gain insight into the culinary arts but also appreciate the resilience and passion that drive Rick's success. He emphasizes the importance of hard work and the willingness to adapt in the face of challenges, offering advice that resonates beyond the kitchen. Whether you're a food lover, an aspiring chef, or simply someone who enjoys a good story, this episode is a delightful journey through the flavors of Rick's life and career. So grab a fork and get ready for a mouth-watering conversation that serves up inspiration alongside delicious anecdotes!

[00:00] Introduction to Our Culinary Guest

[00:48] Host Introductions and Show Details

[02:25] Early Culinary Beginnings

[03:24] Learning from the Best

[08:09] Transition to Quincy Street Bistro

[15:07] The Birth of Southern

[24:53] Grace Meat + Three and Future Plans

[25:08] Sponsor Messages and Closing Remarks

[26:49] Introduction and Contact Information

[27:19] Interview with Rick Lewis Begins

[28:25] Rick's Journey and Wisdom for Young Cooks

[31:28] Challenges and Rewards in the Restaurant Business

[33:31] Innovative Ideas During COVID-19

[35:42] Expansion and Food Truck Ventures

[38:39] Opening New Locations and Business Strategies

[45:05] Signature Dishes and Cooking Techniques

[49:51] Conclusion and Final Thoughts

Takeaways:

• Rick Lewis started his culinary journey at a mom-and-pop restaurant, learning the ropes of cooking and restaurant culture from the ground up.
• He worked his way up through fine dining, soaking up knowledge from experienced chefs, which shaped his unique cooking style and philosophy.
• Rick has earned accolades including being a James Beard Rising Star semi-finalist, and his Comfort Style cuisine has been widely recognized in local media.
• His fried chicken has been crowned the best in Missouri by the Food Network, making him a beloved figure in the St. Louis food scene.
• Rick emphasizes the importance of treating any job as if it were your own, fostering a strong work ethic and character that leads to future opportunities.
• The podcast highlights how Rick's journey through various kitchens and his passion for cooking led to the successful establishment of his own restaurants, including Grace Meat and Three.

• Best Fried Chicken in Missouri | Grace Meat + Three
• Order Grace Chicken + Fish

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Our guest's culinary journeystarted at a mom and pop restaurant.
He worked his way to finedining by learning the culture and
quality of a professional chefand kitchen. He's been recognized
as a James Beard Rising Starsemi finalist and his Comfort Style
cuisine has garnered acclaimas the best restaurant in Sauce Magazine,
feast magazine and St. Louismagazine, as well as a feature on

(00:23):
Food paradise and the FoodNetwork. He's been recognized also
in Food and Wine, Forbes andTravel Leisure. We're going to talk
to our guest in just a momenton St. Louis in Tune. Welcome to

(00:48):
St. Louis in Tune and thankyou for joining us for fresh perspectives
on issues and events withexperts, community leaders and everyday
people who make a differencein shaping our society and world.
I'm Arnold Stricker along withco host Mark Langston, who happens
to be on assignment today. Andwe're glad that you've joined us
today, folks. We want to thankour sponsor, Better Rate Mortgage

(01:09):
for their support of the show.You can listen to previous [e-mail]
please help us continue togrow by leaving a review on our website,
Apple Podcast or yourpreferred podcast platform. Our thought
to ponder today, don'tspeculate on what might happen. Imagine
what you can actually makehappen. Thinking about some things

(01:31):
but not acting on them in theright way, but speculation of what
might happen. Imagine what youcould actually do and make it happen.
That's something to consider,folks. And our guest has done that.
He's been, as I mentioned, Icall him the Catfish King or he's
the Chicken King. He's thechicken, by the way. I gotta get

(01:52):
this out here. I have to turnmy page here. His fried chicken has
been voted the best friedchicken in Missouri by the Food Network.
That is an acclaim that weneed to really make sure that we
got. Oh my gosh, that's thewrong thing. There we go right there.
There we go. That's the bestfried chicken, Rick. We got Rick
Lewis in studio today. Rick,welcome to St. Louis and Tune.

(02:15):
Thank you so much. Such anepic intro for me, too. I love it.
Yeah, you've. I enjoy going toyour restaurant. And you opened another
one. We'll talk about that ina minute. And you got you started
with the food truck, but takeus back to the. Where I was talking
about the mom and Pop restaurant.
Yeah. So if we're gonna go allthe way back, the first restaurant

(02:36):
I ever worked in was Delaney'sover in South County. That would
be at that time Ron and MariaGrimaldi owned that restaurant. And
then I really I had to beg formy position there.
What'd you do there?
So I started out and makingsalads in front, working the fryer.
So it's gone full circle. I'mback on the fryers. But. But, yeah,
I started out doing that anddoing some prep, and then went from

(02:59):
there to LaRusso's. KachinaRich and Terry LaRusso, same thing.
Started out in prep and thenworking salads, and then worked my
way all the way through thatkitchen and learned a lot. Working
in those places, you get theprivilege of working really close
and alongside the owners,right? The guys that created these
businesses and started them.And I think having that opportunity

(03:22):
really fed into me as a youngcook. And then, let's see, from there,
I went to an American place,Larry Forgione Kitchen, ran by Josh
Galliano. And then, onceagain, that was just such a huge,
huge honor and a privilege. Ihad no idea what I was doing stepping
into that kitchen. I'd neverseen food that looked like that.

(03:43):
Didn't know about food like wewere doing there, really. And, yeah,
just Josh took me under hiswing and really poured into me, gave
me a Michel Bra cookbook.Central Cuisine, I think, is the
name of it, to borrow at thattime. And it just, like. It, like,
wowed me. Just blew my mind.
Did you go home and startmaking some of these things, or did

(04:05):
you after hours? You made someof those things at work?
I was like, my God, why'd hegive me this book? What, am I gonna
just cook this egg yolkemulsion at home for fun? But I did
start making some of the stuffin it. And really, his goal, I think,
was just to inspire me. He didsuch a wonderful job of. And he's
called me the sponge back thenbecause I was just. Oh, yeah, consuming

(04:25):
all this information.
So from each of these placesthat you've been, you gleaned different
kinds of things, either forthe business part of it, how to run
a kitchen, cooking, designing, recipes.
I really, Yeah, I reallydidn't work, like, a ton of restaurants.
I. Restaurants, just honestly,out of necessity for a job, really.
Like, I was doing rehab workwith my dad. He has small business,

(04:48):
own a lot of real estate,residential real estate, house flipping,
stuff like that. And I justdidn't really love that. And. But
I did enjoy cooking. Lookingback, like, there was little hints
all over my growing up, but Ijust didn't know it yet.
Like, what?
And just, like, I would show alot of interest in my mother cooking.
We cooked a lot, cookeddinner, like, every Meal every day

(05:11):
for all of us. And from Ithink four years old, three or four
years old, she taught me howto scramble eggs at 3 years old.
And I was like making eggsand, and then like growing up, as
I got older in high school, Ialways joke about this. I showed
a lot of interest in, inparties and throwing parties and
hosting people over fineparties. And I started throwing barbecues

(05:34):
at the park after school orthrowing parties where we would have
people barbecuing and kegs.And I would charge money to come
to these big parties. I getsomeone to play some music or something.
And so it just, I think Iliked, I loved people. I loved networking
very young and just knew a lotof people and loved that. And then

(05:54):
once I got into restaurants, Ifeel I kind of, I got to interact
with alongside people in thoseenvironments. You work very closely
with all the people that workin restaurants on a day to day basis.
You see them a lot. And Iloved that. And then like I said,
getting to know those ownersat those restaurants, they took pride.
Everybody takes pride insomething. They build like that,

(06:16):
whether it's just taking careof the place properly or learning
why they do what they do orhow they got in it. And, and so that
was really cool. And thenmeeting someone like Josh, who is
this extremely intelligent,very gifted person with food, they
were all like educations.Right. I didn't go to college. I
didn't at that time, didn'treally know what I wanted to do or

(06:39):
why go to college. I wasn'tmuch into school. Like I had trouble
in school growing up and justhad trouble sitting at a desk learning
like that. Right. But when I'mworking alongside people or more
hands on, I learned reallywell. And, and so really that each
place I worked really was likeeducational for me. Right. And so

(07:01):
I stuck around and most all ofthem until I just felt like I either
wasn't like learning somethingor I wanted to learn more. And so
I went from like the bar andgrill to the family owned Italian
restaurant to an Americanplace, which that was like a huge
transition. And then from anAmerican place to Monarch, where

(07:24):
Josh left an American place,went to Monarch.
I didn't know you were at Monarch.
Yep. And then started there asanother line cook with him. Worked
into the sous chef role. Metmy wife there.
Okay, congratulations.
Yeah, thank you. She'swonderful. She's much more gifted
than I am at most things.She's an amazing woman. And, and
yeah, just, it was all ajourney. I never once, a little bit

(07:49):
here and there, but it neverreally was about money or what I
was making. It was more aboutwhat I was learning. And so I just
continued to move wherever myheart called me to in order to learn
more. And that's really theway our entire career has gone, is
like we just keep walkingthrough doors that open up.
Because when did you get toQuincy Street? When did you make

(08:12):
that leap? Because you wererunning that whole show, weren't
you?
Yeah. So Monarch had announcedthey were going to be closing after
a very long run. And like Isaid, I had met my wife there at
the time, girlfriend, and wewere getting pretty serious. I was
thinking about proposing toher. And her parents had opened Quincy
Street. Her dad, similar kindof to my dad, he did a lot of like,

(08:35):
general contracting,construction work, stuff like that.
Had his own business andbought what was, I think it was called
Jimmy's Tavern, maybe, I can'tremember, and renovated the whole
building and just made itgorgeous. And his intent was to lease
it out to a friend of his thatwas going to operate as a restaurant.

(08:55):
And then very quickly they gotlooped into the restaurant business
and so they're running thatplace with a partner. Elissa and
I were still working atMonarch. And then she would come
home, come over to my house,like, just pretty upset. Her mom
and dad were stressed out.Things weren't going great there.

(09:16):
It was just a disorganizedmess and they're struggling a little
bit. And so I really thought,like, really once Monarch had announced
the closure and people startedreaching out with job opportunities,
to me, it was like the firsttime people were coming to me for
jobs instead of me going out hunting.
Down jobs, shoes on the other foot.

(09:37):
And that was prettyflattering. But I really like at
that time, thought I would gowork for. I always loved Kevin Nash
and I spent a lot of time inhis kitchens with his guys while
working with Josh and Monarch.And so I had sat down with an interview
to interview with him and talkabout what I wanted to do. And that
was really a pivotalconversation. And he's always, he's

(09:59):
been a great mentor to me overthe years as well. And I was telling
him the things that I wasconsidering. One, going and helping
my in laws over there, or two,coming to work with him. And he just
looked at me and he was like,brother, your heart's already in
that thing over there. You'regonna marry that girl. And he's.
There's always going to bejobs like this with guys like me

(10:19):
for a guy like you. And he'sjust Go do it. If it works out, it's
going to be great. If itdoesn't work out, you can always
come back and work with me.And. And so I was like, all right.
So I talked to Alyssa. I waslike, this is what we're going to
do. Her dad had me into Quincystreet, walked me around. He's like,
what do you think about allthis? I was like, it's a mess. And.
And. And we talked about itand figured out what we were gonna

(10:41):
do. Now he had a partner atthat time, so we couldn't change
a bunch of stuff. And I washonestly, I was embarrassed. Cause
I was doing one thing goingdown this, like, more fine dining,
like, modern kind of deal. Andthen I went there. And at that time,
they weren't really. It was agood neighborhood bar and grill kind
of thing, but they weren'tdoing anything spectacular, spectacular,

(11:03):
interesting. And not to knockon it. So Mike and Sue, if you hear
this, I'm not knocking on theway Quincy street was. It's just
different. And I think theyknow that. And. And so I really didn't
say anything to anybody when Istarted working there. And. And we
quietly started changinglittle things here and there. And
then Mike and Sue bought outtheir partner that they were having

(11:24):
issues with. And that thenopened up the door for me to be able
to change stuff. And so theirwhole vision for that place from
kind of day one was to justhave this family comfort food restaurant.
And so the menu, they had aton of items, some of which were
things that were reflective ofwhat they wanted. They wanted fried
chicken and meatloaf andburgers and stuff like that. But

(11:46):
they also had pastas andsalads and appetizers and seafood
and not great seafood andsteaks and pizza and just huge menu.
And so I was like, all right,we're gonna, like, chop this thing
down by 75%.
Yeah, a lot to prep for.
And they weren't crazy aboutthat at first. They fought me on
something. They're like, oh,what about the chicken spagini? And

(12:08):
I'm like, we don't sell any ofthem. These are the items you're
selling. Those are the itemsyou want. And so after some negotiations,
that's what we did, was paredit down to about, I don't know, 25
or 30 items, something likethat, which was still pretty large
menu, I felt like. But that'swhat we did. And then focused on
sourcing everything from localfarms. I worked with a handful of

(12:30):
farmers, Matt Tiefenbrewing,Buttonwood Farms he had just started
raising chickens. His parentscame into dinner. They were like,
where are you getting yourchickens? And so we were one of like
his first vendors there. He'snow grown that company huge and I
think he just sold it orsomething like that. They're wonderful
people. And a bunch of othervegetable farmers and guys doing

(12:52):
cool stuff. And all thebreweries were just opening up in
St. Louis, like perennial andfour hands and herb and Chestnut.
We had the big like kind ofbrewery boom right around the same
time they opened up at Quincystreet. And we became really close
friends with all those guys.So I was like, all right, we're gonna
do local beer and we're gonnado farm to table comfort food and

(13:12):
maybe serve some bourbon orsomething like that. So we put a
bunch of taps in, we doubledthe number that they had down there
and then just carried allthese rotating taps and seasonal.
Did seasonal menus andseasonal food. And then one. One
little write up came out andthen another one came in and you
were killing it. And then IanFrobe wrote this article where I

(13:34):
was the chef of the year. Andthen I think a couple months later,
that's when he nominated us orwe got nominated for the James Beard
Award. And then that put us onthe map between those two things.
It was like people, we were adestination on Loughborough and Gravoy.
And it was a pretty amazingthing. It was like looking back as
like you just. You're doingkind of where your heart's calling.

(13:59):
You're walking through theseopen doors and it was just really
amazing. And. And so that'sreally where I met Mike Emerson and
some different guys. And hepopped his head in the kitchen like
that first day after the JamesBeard nominee and there's a line
out the door and we're runningout of food. It was nuts. And we
got Elissa's little brotherand her little sister and her mom

(14:21):
and dad's washing dishes andeverybody's back there doing prep
and the Mike's. What can Ihelp you with? I was like, you could
take this stack of porkbellies and take them down to Pappy's
and smoke them and. Cause Ihad this little backyard. I brought
my smoker from my house overthere. Like it was. We were like,
yeah, just crunch time. Justcrunch time and doing it the old

(14:41):
school way. And that wasamazing for quite a few years, but
we always wanted to own ourown business. And that was her parents
restaurant. It started tobecome clear that was the way it
was going to be. And then anOpportunity arise to partner with
Emerson over there next toPappy's and launch a restaurant.

(15:03):
And that restaurant was called Southern.
Southern.
We're going to talk more toRick Lewis about Southern. This is
Arnold Stricker with MarkLangston of St. Louis in Tune. So
is that when you got into thefried chicken or were you always
into the fried chicken?Because Southern was really known
for the fried chicken.
It is interesting. So the foodthat we cook is food that I love.

(15:24):
It's like food that'sreminiscent of food I grew up with.
Quincy street was like aversion of that. It was just more
of this kind of farm to table,upscale version of the food that
I love. We're still doingsimilar sides and we had a fried
chicken there. It wasdifferent, but Southern was the true
avenue where it was like,okay, I'm now the fried chicken guy

(15:47):
in St. Louis.
Sure. And you are.
Yeah. And it was also ourfirst kind of foray into the true
casual, like, counter servicestyle restaurant. And we really had
no experience with that goinginto it. And so, yeah, he was like,
hey, there's a space next toPappy's. We were looking at spaces
and that's how it came up. Andthen he realized, oh, we're looking

(16:08):
to do something different. Andthen he pitched the idea of doing
something together. Thatsounded like a great idea because
I'd never opened a restauranton my own and had really, honestly
no idea what I was doing. Iwas just cooking food, having fun
and checking on guests.
But you had prepared all theway along the way.
Yeah, we were laying afoundation that I can see now. I

(16:28):
also can see how I really hadno idea what I was doing.
You're honest about that?
Oh, yeah, dude. I've learnedlike, I am a hands on trial and error.
I've learned a lot of lessonsthe hard way and. But it's good.
It's made, I think, us verysmart and. And made us who we are.
So, yeah, they were like, wereally like this comfort food thing

(16:51):
you got going on. What do youthink about fried chicken? And I
think I was like, I thinkthat's awesome. And people that eat
barbecue are gonna eat fried chicken.
And because there reallywasn't a quote unquote chicken plate.
Now some people would disagreewith me.
Yeah, I mean, you had likeHodaks and Porter. You had the old
school guy. There was nobodydoing like looking at that and doing

(17:13):
like newer take on.
It and with a Southern kind of twist.
Yeah, yeah. And. And honestly,going back to Quincy street, like,
there was really but nobodydoing that type of food at that time.
The stuff we were doing.
That's true.
It was like one of the firstkind of gastro pubby kind of things
that we had.

(17:33):
Yeah.
And then shortly after, therewas lots of different stuff. It's
been really cool. I feelhonored to be somewhat a part of.
Trailblazing.
Yeah. The growth of maybe nota huge part of it, but a small part
of it. And. And we saw Hotchicken blown up in Nashville and
we were like, there's nothinglike this. Let's do something like
that. And then adifferentiator was the catfish too.

(17:56):
A lot of those places don'treally do the catfish, but we were
like, let's do the Southerntake. And looking back too, when
we opened up, we did chickenand sandwiches. So we had all these
sandwiches and we were doingall this stuff. And really quickly
it was like, okay, this, we'rechicken and catfish is what we're
doing. And. And yeah, all the,all the accolades, all the acknowledgments,

(18:18):
all the cool stuff was goingon. Line out the door, just gangbuster
busy. It's at like 75 people.And we were literally. We would kick
people out of there.
We would be like, you can'tsit and talk.
Thank you so much. How was it?And they're like, oh, so good. Thank
you so much for coming in. Weneed to seat someone else.
Yeah.

(18:39):
And most of the time they justsmile and get up and say thank you.
Because it was like veryapparent you had people. We would
stop the register, you havepeople hanging around you and the
bussers be walking around youwith squirt bottle of sanitizer hinting
at getting up. We'd bus allyour stuff out from underneath you
as soon as you took that lastbite. And. And so that was wild.

(19:00):
And it was good for a while.There was a few things, you know,
that. That I made somemistakes along the way and they did.
And it just. It got to a pointwhere I was like, alright, I think
this isn't necessarily foreverfor us either. Right. But the huge
blessing that came out of thatplace and lessons learned in business
and stuff like that was I metour current partner, Adam Wainwright

(19:25):
over there eating barbecue. Istarted talking to this guy and I
have no idea who he is. I wentover there to get some brisket or
something for lunch while wewere building Southern and I just
started talking to this guy,just randomly. And he's sitting down.
He was kind of back of theirrestaurant, which is. And I was cutting
through to Their kitchen. Sothat's how it happened. But he's

(19:46):
sitting back there with acouple other ball players. And I
started talking to him abouthunting and gardening. And we talked
for maybe an hour, like a while.
Wow.
And I go back over to therestaurant to Southern, and everybody's
like, what were you talking tohim about? You know who that is?
Fastballs and curveballs.
Like, that's Adam Wainwright.I was like, who's Adam Wainwright?

(20:08):
They're like, what, theCardinals pitcher feature hall of
Famer? He's awesome. I waslike, oh, really? So I grabbed some
hats, went back over there. Iwas like, hey, we're getting ready
to open this restaurant. Wouldyou want to come to our soft opening?
And he was like, sure, if I'min town. So I was like, cool, what's
your number? He gives me hisphone number, which is pretty crazy.

(20:29):
And. And we stayed in touch.And I would send him a picture of
a little deer I shot. He'dsend me a picture of this monster
that he shot and becamebuddies every time he came to our
soft opening. Brought hiswife, Jenny.
Cool.
And then every time he was intown, he would bring his family or
we got to know each other. Andso when we left, when we left Southern,

(20:50):
we were trying to figure stuffout, Right. It happened abruptly.
I won't go into all thedetails, but I left abruptly. And
we had a house payment, twocar payments. My wife's going to
college. Still had schoolbills, or. No, she had just graduated
college, but we had all thebills from college. And I just up

(21:12):
and leave my job. And we'relike, what are we gonna do? And pitched
the idea to them. We go out toeat. I'm giving you the abbreviated
version of the story. It tooka while getting to this point. Pitched
the idea to them to open up arestaurant. And our vision was just
to have a community buildingrestaurant that really centered around

(21:34):
fellowship and bringing peoplefrom all walks of life together.
Just to have good Southernhomestyle food.
And hospitality and just conversation.
Yep. Simple food, hospitality,forward, care for the community,
care for the staff. And. Andwe pitched the idea to that to him

(21:54):
and his brother. It was likewinter warm up 2015 or 2016, I think,
because we opened it. No, It'dbe like 2016 because we opened in
2017. Maybe it was in 2017. Idon't know, Whatever. And it's super
emotional. I'm like, I gotsome tears flowing a little bit.

(22:15):
And just because I felt like Igot my family into a predicament.
Right. And we Leave. And Ilook at Elisa, and I'm like, how
do you think that went? Andshe's like, I think it went pretty
good. I was like, you sure?She's like, yeah, I think it went
good. And so we're drivinghome, and I get a text message from
Trey, Adam's brother, and he'sjust, hey, man, we want to let you

(22:37):
know we got your back andeverything's gonna be okay. And so
we started finalizing a deal.Like a. Like, I had a really crappy
business plan. I proposed tothem. There is, like, a menu on an
old iPad, right. And, like, aterrible mission statement. Not terrible
mission statement, but prettyrough around the edges.

(22:58):
Better than on a napkin?
Yeah. Yeah. It was a few stepsabove a napkin, but it was terrible.
And he was, like, reallyadamant. And so this is where the
education came back in. So hewas. Trey's legal background, works
in private equity, and he's.He was like, wanted me to go through
the formal process of doingthis, right? Like, I was pitching

(23:22):
it to a bank or something. Andso I did that, and I went through
all that, and it was, like,pain for me. Like, I am not.
You're the kitchen guy.
I'm hands on, talking topeople, cooking food, and I'm not,
like, sticking at a laptop andtry to come up with a bunch of numbers
that make sense and designsomething. But he walked me through

(23:44):
it, and. And so we startedlooking at places, and. And I'm doing
some catering gigs for Adamand the Cardinals at the same time
to put a few bucks in ourpocket and pay or keep the bill collectors
away. And. And. And we startlooking at places, and we happen
to just drive past sweetiepies down there in the grove. And

(24:05):
the. They were closed. Andwe're like, they're sweetie pies.
But why they closed? And sothere was no sign up, nothing like
that. We just called on theproperty. And so we get in touch
with Landlord. Hey, yeah.They're on their way out. And so
we met with them, walkedthrough, and we're like, this is
way big. It's twice the sizeof what we were looking for. But
we were like, this is the homefor this place. And it felt so natural.

(24:28):
Right? It's like we wanted todo this meet in three comfort food
concept. We're coming in afterthe legendary soul food place. There
was also a little bit oftension around that, too.
Right.
But it was perfect, and itfelt like home. So we started negotiating
with landlord and worked out adeal, and that's been wonderful.
And we can be more thrilledfor how much we've enjoyed being

(24:50):
in the Grove and theexperience doing that.
We're going to talk more toRick Lewis about Grace Meat and three,
which is the restaurant thathe and his wife run, and they've
opened up another one out inCross. And we'll also talk about
the food truck. This is ArnoldStricker with mark Langston on St.
Louis and Tune. Don't go Away.

(25:18):
This is Arnold Stricker of St.Louis in tune on behalf of the Dred
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a major legal event andcatalyst that contributed to the
Civil War. The decisiondeclared that Dred Scott could not
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(25:41):
overturn the US Supreme Courtdecision on July 9, 1868. The Dred
Scott Heritage foundation isrequesting a commemorative stamp
to be issued from the USPostal Service to recognize and remember
the heritage of this amendmentby issuing a stamp with a the likeness
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(26:01):
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has been Arnold Stricker ofSt. Louis in tune.
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(27:19):
Want.
To welcome you back to St.Louis in tune. This is Arnold Stricker
with Mark Langston. Mark is onassignment today. We're talking to
Rick Lewis. He's the owner,operator, chef, restaurateur, jack
of all trades at Grace Meatand Three down in the Grove on Manchester.
And Grace Meat and Threecultivates meaningful connections

(27:40):
through delicious meals. Ifyou've not been there, you are really
missing it. And I want to giveRick a kudo on this, because I was
always searching for catfishin St. Louis, and we would go down
to Arkansas when we werevisiting down there, and it just
wasn't the right kind of deal.And, man, I ordered catfish at grace

(28:03):
meat and 3. The very firstthing I ordered. Matter of fact,
I usually order that all thetime, but I'll get some of the specials.
I'll get some of the. I'll getthe fried chicken, too. And I was
like, holy smokes. And yousaid, there's a difference there.
And I don't know if you want.
To go into that, but it makesa difference to me. And if you want
the best catfish in St. Louis,you have to go to Grace Meat in three.

(28:23):
Thank you. Thank you. I didwant to touch on some of the stuff
we talked about, just becauseit dawned on me that it would be
a shame to waste anopportunity to be able to pour a
little bit of wisdom on someyounger cooks or younger guys doing
some.
Oh, we were going to do that.
At the end, but if you want todo it now, go ahead.
It's applicable. And I thinkthe important thing to realize so
far through this journey ofwhat we've been doing is, like, I

(28:46):
took something that wasn'tmine and I stewarded it.
That's a great word for that.
So when I was learning at themom and pop shops and then the opportunity
at Quincy street, even thoughit was not. They were not mine, I
ran them as if they were mine.And I worked just as hard as if they
were mine. And. And I thinkpeople are always watching. And people,

(29:13):
when you meet people, they geta sense of your character and who
you are. And so I think forme, and those opportunities, like,
then opened up the gate forother opportunities, such as, like,
partnering with Mike overthere at Pappy's and to present a
really good opportunity to meat that time, and then meeting Adam

(29:37):
and Trey and them to then goout on a leap and invest in us in
a time where, quite honestly,I would have probably not even been
able to get a bank loan justwith as much personal debt as we
had at the time and everythinglike that. And what they saw was
someone that is willing to.Has a good heart, is willing to work

(29:58):
hard and isn't going to failbecause he's gonna pour us all into
it. And if he does fail, he's.I'm gonna at least go down fighting.
And that whole time, I wasn'tnecessarily aware of it at the time,
but when I look back at allthat stuff, and I think it's really
important for young peopletoday because you can get really
caught up in this social mediawhere everything's easy. You deserve

(30:23):
all this. You know it's gonnacome and that's not true. Like it's
fake. Yes.
Preach it.
You're gonna get it. If youwork hard, right? You sacrifice a
lot and you pour youreverything into stuff, right? And
you shoot for the stars. Ifyou shoot for the stars and you fall
a little bit short, you're.
Still out there in space.
You're way out there in space,and you're way ahead of a lot of

(30:46):
people. And so there's atendency to either settle for less
because you just think, oh,that's not you, and so you don't
dream big enough, or there's atendency to think that you deserve
it and it's gonna come easy.And. And neither one of those are
true. Everybody deserves tolive a big, full, meaningful life.

(31:09):
And you were designed to work.And you were designed to work hard
and get out there, especiallywhen you're young. Get out there
and risk it, get after andwork hard for it. But don't think
that it's just gonna come toyou or that you deserve it. Work
your butt off, you know, proveyour worth, and then people will
see that, and then the fruitof that will come on the back end.
And the restaurant business isespecially difficult. There's a lot

(31:32):
that goes into it. A lot ofpeople think, I can open a restaurant.
There's a lot, a lot that goesinto it. You almost have to live
it.
And. Yeah, and you're not. Youmight be a really talented chef or
cook or whatever, but that'snot all you're doing. You're a counselor,
you're a plumber, you're atrash man, you're a bookkeeper, you're
a. You name it. All businessesare the same. So you're wearing.

(31:55):
And you're a small business,so that means you're wearing all
those hats until you canafford to pay somebody else smarter
than you to do them. You haveto nurse it along.
But piggybacking off what yousaid. In any vocation or anything
that you're doing, being agood steward of working in any kind
of business, you're learningwhatever it is. But if you treat
it like it is yours, there's alot more personal input into it.

(32:19):
There's a lot more ownership,personal ownership. And it really
develops character in you.
It develops a ton ofcharacter. And so does all the hardships
and trials that go throughthat. As long as you're willing to
keep lifting your head up andpushing through that stuff, you're
going to come out on the backend a better business person, a better
chef, a better whatever roleyou're doing. I don't care if you're

(32:40):
the dishwasher. And we'vetalked to our team about stuff like
this all the time. You wearthat title, you run that, you do
it and do it with pridebecause it's an important part of
it. And so we. We try to drivehome that culture a little bit at
the restaurant. And when I sithere and talk about stuff, like,
I'm like, really, we should doit a lot more than what we do.
You're doing it. And I thinkin a lot of places, those conversations

(33:02):
don't even occur, or itdoesn't occur to the ownership to
have those conversations.
Yeah. And it's. It a little, Idon't know, short sight is the right
word. But if you can inspireeven your dishwasher to be like,
want to open a restaurant ordo think how much harder he's going
to work and doing right thisstuff. Maybe then he's going to cook
and then maybe he's going towork out front and then who knows?

(33:23):
But anybody can do it. Somepeople have more natural ability
than others that you just gotto offset that with harder work.
That's right. You're walkinginto Grace meeting three. Great atmosphere.
The. The food is just. You gofor the food, but there's a lot more
involved. One of the things Ithink my wife and I compliment you
on all the time is duringCOVID man, you opened up that window

(33:46):
and the takeout window. Andwhat a great idea. Rather than having
to go into the restaurant,you're right outside the windows
right there. Boom. You couldcall your order in, you can order
online.
And really that was another,like, huge blessing that, like, because
we opened that September of2019. So we opened it before COVID

(34:07):
okay. For late night food. Andthen when Covet hit, we were just
perfectly positioned, you wereto go through it. And. And it just
was amazing. Once again, itwas just like we saw an opportunity
back then with some dead spacein the restaurant. There was nothing
in that little spot. It wasjust like literally dead real estate.

(34:28):
And. And now we just use itfor carry out all day every day.
And we felt at that time anobligation to be safe and make sure
we weren't doing anythingcrazy. But we were positioned well
to be able to do it. We had awhole bunch, our whole team wanted
to continue to work. And soit's like, how can we do this and

(34:48):
do it safely? And we also feltif we're a community building restaurant,
then what is better during astressful time like that than to
have something that is stilllike a glimmer of hope of normalcy
at that time. And people werecoming out in droves to tell us that,
oh yeah, that how much ithelped them and how thankful they

(35:10):
were. And then we felt soblessed that then we were donating
meals and money to give tofurloughed restaurant employees at
that time. And we raised amess of money and a ton of meals.
I had, I still got pictures ofthem, like tickets where people were
like, just give the. Theybought whatever, 15 meals. They're

(35:31):
like, just give these tosomeone that needs it. And. Or we
love you guys so much. Thankyou for being out here doing this.
And. And so that was anamazing period.
Of time to you guys moved intothe. Was the food truck after that
or food truck before that?
So the food truck came. Thefood truck came after that. So the
food truck came I think around2022 or 2021. And and so we were

(35:59):
doing pre2020. We were doinglike the Grace Citywide Fair. And
we're. I think the last yearis like 10 or 12,000 people showed
up at that. And we were doinglots of events. Once again, we wanted
to be out in the community andbuilding a brand. And we were just
lugging deep fryers in thetransit and on trailer and tents.

(36:19):
And then this food truckreally just fell in our laps. And
so we weren't necessarilylooking to get in the food truck
business, but this truckshowed up. Cardinals had built the
truck, wanted to had it for afew years and then built Ballpark
Village and didn't need itanymore. We don't need this truck
anymore. And a buddy of mine,his mom was the. Is the assistant

(36:41):
to the owner of the Cardinalsand he told me about the truck. And
then of course I called Adamand I was like, bro, how are you
not going to tell me theCardinals have a food truck that
they Want to sell? I didn'tthink you'd be interested in it.
Are you? I was like, I'll setit up. We met with them and we buy
this truck and they. It's anover engineered. It's a tilt cab

(37:02):
diesel truck they bought brandnew. So it's got no miles on it still.
And had a Craftsman industriesbuild the whole cab on it. And so
then we wrapped that thing andthrew some fryers in it and then
went mobile. And that's beenreally good. And it's a lot of work
and it's annoying sometimesbecause you take a kitchen that's
already high maintenance, youthrow it on a vehicle that's high

(37:23):
maintenance. Seems likethere's always something going on.
But it's a different kind ofatmosphere than in the kitchen, regular
kitchen because it's tighterand you're not. You've got to get
stuff out quickly right there.
So it's two guys, maybe threeguys at a big event. And we run it
really lean. We do fourthings. We do fry, slaw, catfish

(37:44):
and tenders and then. Andsauces and just focus on that. But
everybody loves it becauseit's like the kids will eat that,
the adults will eat that. Andwe focus on promotional events and
buyouts. We're just, we werejust at the Missouri Best of market
this past weekend. We'll dobig events like that, we'll do corporate

(38:05):
buyouts, weddings, anythinglike that. And. And it's been really
good and it's fun. And it.When we opened up Crestwood we were
able to put the food truck upthere, sell food. Leading up to that
didn't go as smooth as wehoped. We had some. I think, yeah,
we had a bunch of hiccups but.So it wasn't there as long as we
wanted it to be there. But itwas up there and. And so the food

(38:27):
truck's been good. Jackson,he's our point man on it this year.
He's been killing it. Shoutout to Jackson. He's been doing a
great job and I think he'll bea future leader at the company. And.
Yeah. And so then, let's see.2022 was also a very hard time because
it was post Covid inflationand prices and staffing was hard

(38:50):
at that time. And. And it'scrazy to look back at that because
right then I was like, man, Idon't know if I love this anymore.
I was like, it's become work.
Yeah, it's become work. I waslike. I was like, I don't know what
else I would do, though. I'mnot gonna. I don't want to go work
for anybody. And I don't.Maybe I'll be a project manager or
something, I don't know. Andwe just hunkered down, dude. And

(39:11):
kept working the process andpraying and eventually got a good
team going again. And itslowly felt better. I don't even
know what point that happened,but it was like all sudden, it's
like, man, I can breathe again.
Yeah.
And then I started feelinginspired again. And we're like, maybe

(39:34):
we should open up another one.And we started looking at places.
We were looking in Kirkwoodand Webster and South County. I grew
up like in Sunset Hills area.Those are very familiar areas to
me. I went to high school,Lutheran South. And we're looking
at some really cool spots.Some of them were like, okay, man,
the rent's really high. Orman, you're gonna put a ton of money

(39:55):
into the build out. Or both.The restaurant business is crazy.
It's silly. It's not a cheapbusiness into these places. And.
And then I'm talking to theguy that's sealing my driveway one
day and asphalt driveway acouple hundred foot and he's out
there stealing. He's beendoing it for a few years and he's,
man, you really should talk toRandy over at King Edwards. He really

(40:16):
wants to retire and get out ofthat. And he goes, I do his parking
lot over there. And I waslike, oh, really? I was like, cool,
give me his number, I'll givehim a call. And I had met Randy several
times. I used to eat therewell before I was in the fried chicken
business. I don't go out toeat fried chicken at all anymore.
Unless it's like, yours. Yeah.Or well, or I'm in a different city

(40:38):
trying to see what someoneelse is doing or whatever. Excuse
me. And so I invited him intothe grove and we sat down and talked
for a while. Turned out heowned the building and turned out
he wanted to get out ofeverything and was ready to retire.
So we just worked out a dealright there over lunch and started
putting it together andworking with banks and doing all

(40:59):
the stuff that I love so muchto do.
Yeah. Gosh, you live for that, right?
Dude, I could call my eyessecond we get big enough where I
could have someone justnegotiate deals for me. Gosh, that
would be such a huge blessing.It's just terrible, that part of
it. And I'm not. I don't like.I actually, I do negotiating. I like

(41:21):
getting what I want. But it'sthe back in the process and then
getting all the numberstogether and forking. Accountants
do a good job at some of thatstuff. But so anyway, so we started
that whole long. It tookforever and the first bank we were
working with didn't feel rightand it was becoming soul sucking.
And so we started working witha different bank at the same time.

(41:41):
I was like, why not?
Let's see if this could geteasier. And it did. And so I was
like, let's kick them to thecurb at the 1 yard line and start
it over with this other bank.So that's what we did and I'm really
happy we did. And, and yeah,we built the place out. I think it
took us four months to buildKing Edwards out and we bought the
building, which that's a hugeblessing and open the doors and it

(42:04):
was rocking and rolling andit's grace chicken, chicken and fish.
That's what we're going toroll with moving forward. Because
we post 2020, we reallychanged our business model down the
grove a lot. We focused moreon the chicken. We still have some
of the like hearty dinnerplates and the burr and the bologna
and stuff like that. But likewe used to do like a daily menu kind

(42:26):
of thing and a differentbrunch and it's. And the other thing
is people in St. Louis, theydon't really know what meat and three
is.
Explain it to them.
Yeah, so meat and three ismore or less a slang term for a buffet
or like a soul food or comfortfood restaurant. Right. Where you
would have a daily kind ofrotating menu and you would just
pick a meat and three sides.So fried chicken, cornbread, collard

(42:48):
greens and mashed potatoes orwhatever. And. And there's. These
places are like in Nashvilleyou would have our entire Tennessee,
you'd have a Arnold's CountryKitchen as the. And then in. In Atlanta,
Georgia you have Merrimack'sTea Room. And there's all these different
legendary institutions. Andwhat was, what is cool about them

(43:11):
is they're like just simpleeateries, right? Hearty food. And
what you get is people fromall walks of life coming to them
for lunch or dinner orwhatever. And it just became this
like kind of melting potgathering place of blue collars,
lawyers, politicians, likepeople from all over the community

(43:33):
just come there to get a biteto eat.
Food was the common denominator.
Yeah, yeah, food was a commondenominator and. But they're just
big networking spaces and sowe love that. But here in St. Louis,
everybody's Grace is threemeats. Grace's meat plus three. We
use that plus sign mainlybecause it just look cooler than

(43:53):
like in whatever the littleant is over and, and, and you find
the name getting botched orwhatever. Maybe it's a good thing,
maybe it's not. I don't know.It annoys me. So I'm like, we're
Grace Chicken and Fish and wewant to do like more of a limited
menu. So it's like a smallerfootprint restaurant. So Grace Meat
and Three always live there inthe Grove. But moving forward, Grace
Chicken and Fish a little bitsmaller kind of footprint. We're

(44:16):
like 110 seats and 24 outside.Down in the Grove, Crestwood's like
48 inside, 24 outside.Something like that.
Crestwood's tighter.
Yeah, we might go a littlebigger than that. That was a little.
It's pretty tight. But it'sbeen great. And Crestwood's been
very welcoming. We hit like atotally different market of people.

(44:38):
You get some people thatthey're like, oh man, I'm so happy
you're out here because now Ican just come more. Whereas I didn't
get down to the Grove veryoften. Or we got so many more people
that just never went down tothat area and they're like, didn't
know who we were. And thenthey used to King Edwards.
Right.
And so now they like love it.

(44:59):
And that used to be an IHOP?
Yeah, 1962.
Back in the day.
Yeah. It's pretty cool.
So tell me about the catfish.
Yeah, so the catfish. I grewup going fishing and our neighbor
was a huge fisherman and hewould catch all this fish and he
would soak it in bush beer.And so that's the way I grew up eating

(45:20):
fish. That's the way my momprepared it. That's the way we grew
up doing it. And then I wouldgo setting trout lines with friends
and we would catch these bigcatfish and you would trim the bloodlines
out of them. So that's a darkcolored meat. It's no good. And then
you just cut it into stripsright on the bass. And so everybody's

(45:41):
like, why is your catfish, Arethey fillets or are they nuggets?
And I'm like, they're fillets,but they're split fillets. That's
why we do that, because that'sjust the way I grew up cutting catfish.
And then we soak it in beerand then we use our, what we call
our poultry and fishseasoning. It's the same seasoning
that goes on the chickenmarinade. But it's a little bit different
marinade because we just usebush beer. And that's got like habanero,

(46:04):
cayenne, black pepper, garlic,some other seasonings. It's got a
lot of stuff.
And it's not the hot stuff.
It's not the hot stuff. That'sa different seasoning.
Right.
But it's. This is the base ofour marinade.
Right.
And so bush beer, the chickenand poultry, or the poultry and fish
seasoning, we soak it in that.And then our dredge is a cornmeal

(46:27):
dredge. It's got some flourand some cornstarch and a little
bit of red chili in there aswell. And we just take it from the
bush beer. We go right inthere, toss it around, and then fry
that stuff up crispy. And it'sreally crunchy and light. And not
the fact that it has a starchand the flour and it lightens it
up a little bit. It's not liketoo corn mealy, but it's still got
some really good crunch to it.The beer takes out any kind of like

(46:53):
catfishing ish. More or less.Say it's muddy or say it's. I don't
really get that with catfish.It does taste different than other
fish and. And that kind ofcleans it up a little bit and it
also firms up the flesh of it.And then we fry that stuff up and
we've got another seasoning.We put on all of our chicken and
fish. It's called. We call itour magic seasoning. It's more or

(47:13):
less like a seasoning salt andthat's how we do that.
But it's real catfish.
Real catfish. It's notMississippi farm rice.
That's company is big deal.
Superior catfish, it's a bigdeal. Which they're a great company,
family owned company.
Just river to table.
It is. Yeah. We were buyingwild caught out of North Carolina

(47:35):
for a while, but that gottough too. And then we found superior
and just rolled with that. Butyeah, a lot of places will sell you
sway, which is much cheaperand much dirtier product. We don't.
The price reflects that. So ifyou're like, man, this catfish is
expensive.
It's because it's real catfish.
Because it's real catfish.Sorry if I'm. No exposing anyone's

(47:58):
dirty little secret out there.But it happens a lot. Even the purveyors
will tell you. They go, man,you guys buy more catfish than anywhere.
That's. It's a great meal. Youcan get it On a sandwich you can
get several. One piece, twopiece, three piece.
Yep. And we do nuggets toonow. True nuggets.
Okay, cool, cool.
But yeah, that's the. Down atthe Grove especially, we sell like

(48:21):
just as much catfish as wesell chicken down there. It's crazy.
It just took off. And thenwe've got differentiating items at
the two restaurants. So theGrove, like you said, you got the
burger, the bologna. We doribs down there. We'll do hearty
dinner plates. We've got likepork belly burnt ends this month.
Our lunch special will alwaysget ran at both restaurants moving

(48:42):
forward.
Okay, that's interesting.
So we're doing like aclocktober fest fried chicken sandwich.
What is on it? Pimento cheese,bread and butter, pickled cabbage,
hot honey mustard, pretzelbun, candied bacon. So that's at
both locations.
I've got to wipe my mouth, I'm drooling.
There you go. At Crestwood wehave beer battered cod, which is
really good. We do this riceflour tempura e beer batter. It gets

(49:06):
really good and crunchy. Andthen we've got like some green chili
hush puppies down there thatare quite delicious. So each restaurant's
got a little bit of a differentiator.
And on the website, thepictures and the video is so good
you almost want to lick thescreen or dig into it there. And
folks, the website, by theway, is STL grace.com or ordergrace.com

(49:30):
if you want to order some foodand pick it up or have it delivered.
Yep. There is a deliverybutton on the website and yeah. And
then. And we also have ourholiday store which you can get through
the website, but it's likeordergraceholiday.com and so coming
up, Thanksgiving orders willbe going live here shortly. Very
shortly.
So got to check that out, folks.

(49:51):
Do sells out quick, so getyour orders in.
Rick, thanks for coming intoday and talking to us. This has
been great. We got your wholelife story now on audio and it's
going to be out for the worldto know.
You got the last. That's likeliterally the last 25 years of my
life in what, an hour?
In an hour, right?
It's a lot.
You're very good, sir. Thankyou. Well folks, that's all for this

(50:18):
hour. We want to thank you forlistening. If you've enjoyed this
episode, you can listen toadditional [e-mail]. consider
leaving a review on ourwebsite, Apple Podcast, Podchaser
or your preferred podcastplatform. Your feedback helps us
reach more listeners andcontinue to grow. We want to thank
Bob Berthicel for our thememusic, our sponsor, Better Rate Mortgage,
our guest, Rick Lewis and cohost Mark Langston, who is on assignment.

(50:40):
And we thank you for being apart of our community of curious
minds. St. Louis in tune is aproduction of Motif Media Group and
the US Radio Network. Rememberto keep seeking, keep learning, walk
worthy and let your lightshine. For St. Louis in tune, I'm
Arnold Stricker.

(51:07):
Sam.