A Richmond Heights husband and wife plan to open a restaurant with a concept new to St. Louis at the former A Pizza Story location in Maplewood, at 7278 Manchester Road.
Ryan and Lindsay Reel, of Richmond Heights, plan to open Tapped, a full restaurant with the iPourIt tap control pour system. It’s the first iPourIt in St. Louis, they say. Maplewood officials approved a full liquor license on Tuesday.
The iPourIt system monitors pours down to one tenth of an ounce. Customers’ ID and credit card are scanned into the system when they arrive, and they’ll receive a wrist band to start the self-serve pouring.
The system stops customers at 32 ounces; they’ll have to recheck-in with the host to have their band reactivated to keep pouring. At checkout, customers receive their deposit back and a summary of their drinking.
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The 48 taps will include beer, wine, nitro coffee, kombucha and Fitz’s soda. Beer selection will focus on local craft beer as much as possible.
The menu will include Neapolitan pizza using the existing wood fire pizza oven and recipes from A Pizza Story, pasta, fish and chips, chicken, beef, and fish entrees, sandwiches, paninis and burgers. Sides, sauces, dressings and dips will be made in-house.
Ryan is a retail store manager with more than 20 years of management experience. Lindsay is a pharmacy supervisor at SSM St. Mary’s Hospital. Ryan will manage the restaurant full-time and Lindsay will keep her day job.
They plan to open the restaurant in early 2017.
I’m excited to try a new locally owned spot in Maplewood. I wish Ryan and Lindsey much success.
There was a similar concept but with wine in the McKnight Crossing plaza in Rock Hill for a brief time (where the slider place is now, before the Mongolian place). There was some sort of snafu with laws and it turned out the patrons could not pour their own due to some sort of law prohibiting that – not sure if the problem was state or local law. So, then they had an attendant there to pour for you. It went under not too long after that.
Wish them luck, and I’ll try the pizza, but I generally prefer a real bartender.
I agree this is a fad concept that will quickly fade. Circle Seven, I believe its called, out in West County has a similar concept. They’ll need to stand on the quality of their food if they are to survive in this hyper competitive Maplewood restaurant market.
Like I said elsewhere this is more common in other cities but is a new concept to St. Louis. In fact some semi-dry parts of Texas use this to get around their liquor laws.
If it’s such a stupid idea, why is Circle Seven always so busy every time I go there?
I”m all for having a new bar/restaurant but the self serve tap thing seems like a misguided fad. Not sure what that really accomplishes. If they have a good beer selection and good food, I’ll definitely try it out though.
Hi Cindy!
I’ve been to a few bars like this in other cities and I think it is a fun and great idea. It is great to get to taste a bunch of different (or expensive!) beers without committing to a full pour.
I hadn’t thought about that part of it. Interesting. I like the idea of being able to have smaller pours to taste more beers…..Honestly, though, at most good beer bars, you can get a half pour or a taste if you ask the bartender.
The other part of it is, most people don’t know how to pour a beer properly, so I can imagine some issues with that.
I just hope the food is good. If that’s the case, the draft system won’t be an issue.
The self pour stuff is nothing new and has been around for a while.