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A quickly expanding restaurant concept centered around healthy eating and operated by the ownership of the Cheesecake Factory has set a date for the opening of its first Missouri location, in the St. Louis area.
A quickly expanding restaurant concept centered around healthy eating and operated by the ownership of the Cheesecake Factory has set a date for the opening of its first Missouri location, in the St. Louis area.
Flower Child's first local restaurant will open June 18 in a 4,445-square-foot space at 10336 Clayton Road in Frontenac, next to the Plaza Frontenac mall, the company said in a news release. Renovation of the restaurant space into what will be a unique design for St. Louis is still underway, the company said.
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It will open for lunch and dinner seven days a week for dine-in and patio visitors. The restaurant will also operate a “robust” catering service, operators said. Customers can opt for to-go orders for pickup, curbside pickup or delivery and can order through the Flower Child app and earn rewards, the company said.
Flower Child is part of Fox Restaurant Concepts, the Phoenix-based restaurant group founded by James Beard-nominated restaurateur Sam Fox. The St. Louis version of Flower Child will be the concept’s 33rd location and marks expansion to its 11th state, the company said.
Development costs were undisclosed.
Restaurant operators are hiring 60 employees ahead of the opening date and will be hosting an in-person job fair at the restaurant through June 1 and again from June 3 to June 8.
The “good for you” restaurant concept behind Flower Child, which first opened in 2014 in Phoenix, consists of made-from-scratch meals that range from vegetarian, vegan, gluten-free to “anything goes,” according to the release. It has customizable bowls, wraps and salads with mix-and-match vegetables, grains, fruits and healthy proteins. An example is the Mother Earth Bowl that has ancient grains, sweet potato, portobello mushrooms, avocado, cucumber, broccoli pesto, charred onion, leafy greens and hemp seeds.
The standalone restaurant location next to the mall, which operators will lease for undisclosed terms, previously served as a St. Louis Bread Co. location of Fenton-based Panera that closed in June 2021. The building is owned by Plaza Frontenac Acquisition LLC, an entity tied to Brookfield Properties, a New York-based property development and management company whose St. Louis holdings include Plaza Frontenac and the Saint Louis Galleria, county and state records show.
As of March, the restaurant operator did not have any plans for further expansion in St. Louis, but said it is "always looking for opportunities" to expand and grow its brands.
The operation of Flower Child was moved from Fox Restaurant Group to its California-based parent company, Cheesecake Factory (Nasdaq: CAKE), last year. The cheesecake-based restaurant company acquired Fox's company in 2019 for more than $350 million, and has since invested heavily in Flower Child and its expansion, the Phoenix Business Journal reported.
