It took seeing somewhere between 40 to 60 locations for Patrick Webster to decide where he should open his first bar. He knew he wanted it to be in St. Louis city and that it should have an events space.
Then he found 1017 Russell Boulevard, which had housed Johnny’s for more than two decades (and then briefly an outpost of Harpo’s), and went for it.
“This one just checked all the boxes,” Webster says. “That it’s in Soulard — which is a great bar neighborhood, a lot of locals that live in that neighborhood go out on a consistent basis. Even the seven-year-olds, they go out four nights a week — that's great.”
Webster opened the doors to the Hi-Hat about three months ago. The two-story bar features eight signature cocktails crafted by bar manager Kate Webster, who is Webster’s sister; Sicilian-style pizza from chef Rory Morse and a music focus that starts with a regular Wednesday night jazz session and hopefully ends with the Hi-Hat becoming one of the neighborhood’s best spots for listening.
For a place that just opened a few months ago, Hi-Hat has a lot going on, and Webster is feeling good about it.
“It's been really good in a lot of aspects,” he says. “I'm not saying it's all perfect by any means. … The potential is there, for sure. There’s been some great nights where you really see it working.”
At the time, Webster, who hails from Godfrey, Illinois, was living in New York City. He'd been there for the last 15 years, working in the bar scene. When COVID-19 came along, it shut down his workplace, and he found himself stuck in his apartment for a week.
“Screw this, I'm gonna rent a car,” he says. “Then [I] just drove back to the area and basically ended up spending four months in my childhood home with the family.”
Like many working a while in the industry, he’d always thought about opening his own place. But in New York that was out of reach financially. Being in St. Louis changed the equation.
“That was a possibility here,” Webster says. “So I went ahead and took a shot.”
After Webster secured the building, there was a year of construction — which mostly involved opening up the space on the second floor. But before that, he had to figure out how to pay for it, which he says took about a year, and finding a contractor to do the work was no small thing either.
Somewhere in that time, Webster met Morse through a mutual friend, and they hit it off, which is how Sicilian-style pizza got on the menu (which also includes salads, some apps and a burger). Unlike cracker-thin St. Louis-style pies, Sicilian pizzas feature a focaccia-like base that’s both soft in the middle and crunchy on the outside.
“It is good,” Webster says. “I mean, he's spent two years perfecting it.”
Webster says that they are currently in the process of turning over both the drinks and food menu, and that regular rotation is in the plan. Some of the best-selling items, like an espresso martini, will stay perpetually, however.
For Webster, one of the hardest parts about the Hi-Hat’s first few months has been one of the things that attracted him to the space in the first place — the apartments upstairs, where he’s currently living.
“We're here 24/7 for better or worse,” he says. “It's a very mixed blessing. Oh, my god, you don’t turn it off.”
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