Pantera’s Pizza (7222 Manchester Road) lost its lease in January when the building was sold and its rent increased. The standalone building has now been leased and will be a T-Mobile store, according to City Assistant Manager Anthony Traxler.
Traxler said the store has all the city clearances and now just needs to acquire work permits and complete the buildout. He said a previous notice on the building to stop work was placed there because T-Mobile jumped the gun, and began doing more extensive work than they originally told the city they would do.
Pantera’s has no updates on its Facebook page about reopening in a new location, other than to say they’d like to eventually.
So is T-Mobile closing their other store in Maplewood by Sam’s Club?
An employee at the Maplewood Commons T-Mobile said they’re staying open there.. that’s what he said.
It’s a shame to see a local place go, but to be honest, the pizza wasn’t that great. I am a T-Mobile customer, and the only phone store in M’wood is a Boost Mobile, so this is perhaps mildly convenient for me (although I have never actually been inside a T-Mobile store). The word on the street is that the new owner paid a lot for the building and couldn’t afford the relatively low rent that Pantera’s was paying. And not every new shop in Maplewood can be a cat café or a bar that serves $9 beers in wine glasses. I just wish we had a dry cleaning place in the neighborhood.
Good point about the $9 beers
You can be grumpy about it because it’s not exciting or just see it is a necessary part of a walkable community. The convenience of Maplewood is that at its center is a variety of stores functional for daily living. I understand that you don’t go to your phone store over and over like a grocer but there needs to be options for people to walk to. There might be one other option for phones on Manchester and most people carry a phone on them. Yes it is a shame it came at the cost of a local business, but the only phone options are chain stores.
just fyi, FoxPaw at Big Bend and Laclede does phone repair and sales, and they are a local business. StL has many locally owned phone stores, especially in the city where the corporate chains fear to tread.
I completely agree with Michelle. I’m glad this it’s leased, but a phone store is lame, and doesn’t add much to the community. Quite a shame if you ask me…
It’s unfortunate when a landlord does something like this. We had a great, locally owned pizza place that was affordable and delicious. Now we’ll have some stupid chain phone store. Cool. Great job bringing uniformity and boredom to the neighborhood, nameless landlord.