Crispy Edges Eats and Shakes restaurant coming to Festus

Aug 20, 2023

Chris Jacobs in front of the old Champions store building, 700 Collins Ave., Festus, where he is putting together his new Crispy Edges Eats and Shakes restaurant. He hopes to open in November.

A Crispy Edges Eats and Shakes restaurant is coming to Festus this fall.

The owner, Chris Jacobs, said the eatery will be housed in the old Champions Mercantile building, 700 Collins Ave., and will offer made-from-scratch delicacies, including pizzas and sandwiches.

Jacobs said he expects the establishment to open in mid- to late November.

He said the restaurant’s name reflects how food will be prepared.

“As I was deciding what to name our new restaurant, ‘Crispy Edges’ came to mind as descriptive words that applied to a lot of the foods that we would be serving and love,” Jacobs said. “When I threw out ‘Crispy Edges’ to my wife, it just fit like a glove. I originally planned on calling it ‘Restaurant and Shakery,’ but we don’t plan on having waiters and waitresses. We felt that Eats and Shakes would be a better fit for the new concept.”

Instead of having a wait staff, customers will order from the counter or from their seats with their phones, Jacobs said.

When customers receive their food, they will be pleased, he added.

“We will have scratch-made food with elevated flavor,” said Jacobs, 37, former owner of the Local House Restaurant and Bar in Arnold, which is still open under different ownership. “Instead of frozen food, it’s all homemade. It’s an Italian-American menu.

“There will be appetizers like bruschetta, shaved brussels sprouts, a variety of different seasoned fries, onion rings. We’ll have St. Louis favorites like toasted ravioli. We’ll have a variety of toasted sandwiches – a spiedini sandwich, a chicken bruschetta sandwich, a turkey-bacon-avocado sandwich, a Cuban sandwich. We’ll have scratch-made pizzas.”

While the restaurant will offer a variety of desserts, there will be a focus on shakes, Jacobs said.

“We’ll have specialty shakes, as well as traditional – cookies and cream shakes, salted caramel shakes,” he said. “You’ll also be able to get scoops of ice cream and cones.”

Jacobs said the establishment will offer beer and wine.

The restaurant will grow some of its food on the premises.

“We’ll have indoor-grow towers to grow lettuce, tomatoes and a variety of herbs,” Jacobs said.

He said the building offers just under 5,000 square feet of space. He plans to have indoor and outdoor seating.

“It will accommodate 95 or so inside and about another 40 outside,” Jacobs said. “I plan to hire 30 to 40 employees, full- and part-time.”

He said he and his wife, Kelsey, and their daughters, Charley and Gia, moved to Festus within the past year.

“I moved my family here last year,” Jacobs said. “I love it. I was looking for a place (for the restaurant) and this was a good location.”

Jacobs plans for Crispy Edges Eats and Shakes to be open from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Mondays through Thursdays; 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays and closed on Sundays.

He said the restaurant will have a social media presence, but that is still to come.

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