The colorful glow of the bar's LED lights mingles with the sunlight streaming in from the street. The bartenders extend warm greetings and show customers how to order food through a QR code posted at each table. A chicken biscuit sandwich arrives steaming, emanating wafts of honey-scented air. The biscuit is soft and fluffy on the inside and gently browned on the outside. The chicken in the middle is homemade, soaked in a pickle brine and crispy from the fryer. The sight alone is mouthwatering.
But some things are very different — and that chicken biscuit is a big sign of that. Last month, Honey Bee's Midtown (2700 Olive Street) opened within the landmark Midtown restaurant's kitchen.
The collaboration between the two establishments is a cause for celebration. But it's also a move born from tragedy. On January 17, 2022, Beffa's executive chef, Ray Wiley, passed away. The sudden event left his loved ones and coworkers spinning and oversight over Beffa's food program in question.
Owner Paul Beffa was left to pick up the pieces. To understand how the answer became Honey Bee's, it's best to go back to the very beginning, when Beffa's great-grandfather and great-grand uncle opened the restaurant's doors on St. Patrick's Day in 1898.
The restaurant persevered over the decades, transforming itself throughout the birth of Prohibition, shifts in population, a nine-year hiatus, and soon after finally reopening, the COVID-19 pandemic.
Beffa watched many of these evolutions unfold. "I grew up at the bar, learning, just taking it all in," he says. "So eventually, when it came time for me to take it over, I naturally gravitated toward the bar side." After searching for someone to run the restaurant, Beffa found Wiley. Wiley put together a new menu and helped Beffa's reopen in March of 2020 after that nine-year pause.
Then came COVID-19: Most days, it was only Wiley and Beffa working together, lucky if even one order came in. "But through all that, we kept our heads down ... because we knew that we could make this work if we worked together," Beffa says, noting that they eventually developed a parking lot brunch with live music, which kept them afloat.
During this time, Honey Bees' owners and husband and wife Mike and Meredith Shadwick were growing their business. Mike's interest in cooking had started decades ago with a carton of eggs, some cheese and a pile of books. He was just emerging from toddlerhood when he crawled on top of the teetering stack, cracking two eggs in a bowl and sprinkling cheese on top. Once he crawled down, he carried the uncooked soupy mixture to his mother, proclaiming it breakfast.
While Mike has since grown in skill, one thing has stayed the same: his passion for bringing others joy through the food he creates.
In June of 2020, when many of us were drawn inside our homes or to wide, open spaces, the Shadwicks decided to sell their biscuits and gravy at the Kirkwood Farmers' Market. Over time, they expanded the menu and opened a brick-and-mortar Honey Bee's in downtown Kirkwood.
Mike Shadwick had grown up with Beffa's chef, Wiley, in Belleville, Illinois, and Wiley took the Shadwicks under his wing as they launched. Wiley's mentorship birthed a series of collaborations between the restaurants, and Mike Shadwick would regularly drop off biscuits to Beffa's on his way to the Tower Grove Farmers' Market.
"Ray was really excited about what we were doing," Meredith Shadwick says. "It really meant a lot a lot to us, especially being new in the industry and just trying to figure it all out. He was instrumental in guiding us along the way, and [he] became our mentor."
A day before Wiley planned to launch a new menu with Shadwich as his right-hand man, Wiley passed away suddenly. His death deeply affected both the Shadwicks and Beffa, who took over the kitchen in his wake.
"Ray was one of those chefs that never really wrote down his recipes," Beffa says. "We tried to piece together as much of the menu as we could [to] keep his memory alive."
One day, when Mike Shadwick was delivering biscuits, Beffa floated the idea of leasing out the kitchen so he could be out front talking with customers and making drinks. It was only natural to look to Honey Bee's as a tenant.
About a year later, Honey Bee's Midtown is up and running. But customers familiar with the Kirkwood location shouldn't expect a carbon copy. In addition to the restaurant's much-loved honey-glazed biscuits, the Midtown location serves a variety of breakfast sandwiches, pancakes, fried chicken, chili, lunch sammies served on a biscuit or sourdough, and smash burgers. There are also sides: fries, tots, chips and t-ravs.
It's very much an expansion of what Honey Bee's was doing.
"This is like a playground," Beffa says, "We'll support you because we know that you have great vision and you're a hard worker and together we're gonna make this place the place to be."
