ST. LOUIS — Before it closed in 2011, Beffa's had been a storied St. Louis eatery for 113 years.
Located at 2700 Olive St. on the northern edge of the sprawling complex that was A.G. Edwards, now Wells Fargo Advisors, Beffa's cultivated an image of a speakeasy, with no advertising and no signs on its modest brick building. For years, it didn’t give out its telephone number.
Customers heard about it by word of mouth from its devoted following of business executives, judges, lawyers, politicians and reporters who ate and drank there. The late Sen. Tom Eagleton was a regular.
Paul Beffa, 27, a 2016 Mizzou grad and son of third-generation owners Mike and Nancy Beffa, decided to reopen in 2019, but one delay after another moved the reopening back almost a year.
"It was a massive struggle," the younger Beffa said. "We experienced a multitude of delays and didn't get the loan approved till the end of October. We ended up with a fourth of what we needed." Renovations weren't completed till late January because of construction delays.
"The plumbing was rotted out after sitting for nine years," Beffa said. "Eventually we gutted all of the plumbing."
The cost of renovations, originally projected at $80,000, totaled $200,000.
Finally, Beffa's reopened in March. "We had two good weeks," Beffa said. Then the coronavirus pandemic struck. "Everything shut down."
Beffa's reopened again May 12, but the fallout continued. "Wells Fargo next door sent home about 99% of their 6,500 people, and I don't believe they will be back this year," Beffa said. "It was our anchor. Downtown is a ghost town. The loss of sports has hurt, too."
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