Salt + Smoke is closing two of its area locations, according to a social media announcement on Monday afternoon. The post read, in part, “With growth comes hard lessons, and after a lot of reflection, we’ve made the difficult decision to close two of our locations.”
Slated to close August 1, the locations include the 5,000-square-foot, two-story restaurant in St. Louis Hills (5625 Hampton), the former home of Del Pietro’s House of Pasta, as well as the massive location in Ellisville (1386 Clarkson Clayton Center), a former Walnut Grill that seats 300 and an additional 150 on an L-shaped patio. The St. Louis Hills location opened in October 2017, and the Ellisville restaurant opened in March 2024.
Six other Salt + Smoke locations remain open, including the flagship on the Delmar Loop, as well as St. Charles, Ballpark Village, Kirkwood, South County, and Edwardsville.
The Closures
Schmidt says the two closures stemmed from different circumstances.
At the Ellisville restaurant, Schmidt says, “We began on Day 1 with an insane amount of carryout volume we’d never experienced and, quite frankly, weren’t prepared for.” Although the location seated roughly 450 guests indoors and on the patio, “we pulled every lever to make it work, and it just never did.”
The Hampton Avenue location, by contrast, was a victim of changing dining habits. Schmidt says he underestimated how dramatically the growth of delivery and carryout would affect the restaurant. As Salt + Smoke expanded, four nearby locations began overlapping Hampton’s delivery and takeout territory, diverting a significant share of those sales. “Delivery and carryout represented about 50 percent of that store’s sales,” Schmidt says, “so any decrease became difficult to absorb.”
Labor pressures also factored into the decision. Consolidating from eight to six locations, Schmidt says, will allow the company to build stronger teams at the remaining restaurants. The company is transferring as many employees as possible to its remaining locations, though it will not be able to place everyone. Both hourly and salaried employees who cannot be relocated elsewhere will receive severance pay. “We want to soften the blow as much as we can,” he says.
Despite the closures, Schmidt says the company remains financially healthy, pointing to increased volume at the Ballpark Village location this year, which was already Salt + Smoke’s highest-grossing restaurant.
“You can’t suffer losses from two stores forever,” he says. “We’re refocusing our efforts, but we’re not getting away from anything that made us what we are.” That renewed focus includes menu updates—including a new sandwich—and an emphasis on improving consistency, quality, and service.
The popular barbecue brand marks the third major St. Louis restaurant group to shutter two locations in as many days. On Saturday, Dave and Kara Bailey announced that Baileys’ Chocolate Bar and Baileys’ Range will close August 1 as part of an ongoing company restructuring. Yesterday, Chris LaRocca told SLM that Crushed Red’s locations in Ballwin and the Streets of St. Charles closed July 25.
The Backstory
Schmidt first made his mark on the St. Louis dining scene with Franco, the acclaimed French restaurant in Soulard that enjoyed a decade-long run before closing in 2016. He followed it with Nico, a more casual, Mediterranean-inspired sibling with lower prices in the Delmar Loop. But Schmidt soon envisioned the space as a barbecue restaurant. After convincing investors, he and chef-pitmaster Haley Riley—now Salt + Smoke’s co-owner and a Franco veteran—transformed the bistro into a smokehouse in just five days.
After opening a second Salt + Smoke location in St. Louis Hills, Schmidt and Riley expanded the concept with seven additional metro-area restaurants. The Central West End location closed in the summer of 2022, after a fire damaged the building that also housed two neighboring restaurants along Euclid Avenue. The group’s newest restaurant opened in Edwardsville in May.
Ancillary projects included a fast-casual satellite concept, Oh Hey! Barbecue, which operated inside Schnucks stores in Kirkwood and Crestwood. The concept debuted in April 2021 as part of a three-kitchen food hall experiment at the Kirkwood grocery store, offering a streamlined version of Salt + Smoke’s menu. Both locations closed in late 2023. The name grew out of an inside joke between Schmidt and Riley. “It started as the way we greeted each other,” Schmidt said. “It found its way onto our T-shirts and hats, and even our phone greeting—’Oh, hey, thanks for calling Salt + Smoke’—so we thought ‘Oh Hey! Barbecue’ felt like a more casual representation of what we do.
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