For nearly five years, the Starbucks at Hanley Road and Wydown Boulevard sat closed, its windows dark on a corner that otherwise never stops moving. Wright's Tavern is right across the street. Louie is a block over. The lunch crowd from the Bemiston Tower offices walks past that empty storefront every day. It closed in 2021, and a plan to bring a franchised version back later fell through. For years, nobody filled it.
Then, this spring, Clayton's Plan Commission and Architectural Review Board approved a conditional-use permit for Gigi's Cafe, a new concept from Matt McGuire, the same restaurateur behind Wright's Tavern and Louie. Within months, another long-empty coffee spot a few blocks away reopened under a different name entirely. Two of Clayton's most established restaurant owners looked at storefronts that had sat vacant for years and made nearly the same bet, independently, at nearly the same time.
That is not a coincidence worth skimming past. It says something specific about how the people who run Clayton's restaurants are reading the neighborhood's daytime hours right now, and it lines up with a fall calendar the city has been quietly building at the same time.
The Corner McGuire Already Owns
Gigi's Cafe will occupy 7645 Wydown Blvd, the same address where that Starbucks operated until 2021. McGuire told the Plan Commission he plans for the space to run as a coffeehouse by day and shift into pizza and an Italian-style bar in the evening. The build-out is modest by restaurant standards, about 2,200 square feet and 45 seats inside, plus patio seating, with hours starting at 7 a.m.
The location detail that matters most here is proximity, not novelty. Gigi's sits directly across the street from Wright's Tavern, McGuire's steakhouse. He is not opening in a new part of town to test a concept. He is building a second business a crosswalk away from his first, which only makes sense if he expects both the morning coffee crowd and the dinner crowd to already be there.
Parking came up more than once during the commission meeting, since McGuire does not currently plan to add any. One resident, Karen Fairbank, raised the concern directly and then set it aside in the same breath.
"I'm really concerned about the parking, and I'm really concerned about delivery. I really want them there. I'm very excited."
That is the kind of ambivalence that tends to surface when a neighborhood already knows it wants something and is just working out the logistics. The commission also asked McGuire to consider Sunday hours, since he does not currently plan to open that day. He did not commit, but he did not rule it out either.
A Few Blocks Away, a Different Bet on the Same Idea
Around the same time, Dan Powers, the former chef-owner of Boogaloo, opened Toast & Thyme on the ground floor of Bemiston Tower at 231 S. Bemiston. The space used to be Metro Java Coffee House. Powers described the interior as being in good enough condition that he only needed minor updates, the most visible being new crystal-and-steel chandeliers.
Toast & Thyme is built for speed. Powers designed it as a counter-service concept aimed at office workers who want something reliable and quick, not a leisurely sit-down meal. He carried over one specific item from Boogaloo's old menu, a Cuban sandwich regulars used to call the Cubaniche, which now has a second life on the new menu. Boogaloo closed in mid-2024 after struggling to recover from the pandemic, and Powers said the opportunity at Bemiston Tower came through a mutual connection once the building was looking for a change in food service.
Toast & Thyme's interior seats 45, the same number as Gigi's. Both restaurants are aiming at the same daytime population, the people who work in Clayton's office towers and want food that does not require a reservation or a long wait.
Same Seat Count, Different Bet on the Clock
Two experienced Clayton restaurateurs, working independently, landed on businesses that look nearly identical on paper. Roughly the same footprint. The same seat count. Both taking over spaces that used to serve coffee and both watching them sit empty for years before deciding the timing was finally right.
That timing detail is the part worth sitting with. McGuire and Powers are not chasing a dinner reservation, the kind of demand Clayton's restaurant scene has built its reputation on for years with places like Wright's Tavern and Café la Vie. They are building for the hours before lunch, when office workers are back at their desks and the neighborhood's daytime population, not its evening one, decides whether a storefront survives. Powers said as much directly when explaining his reasoning: more employees are back in the office, and that shift is what made a counter-service concept worth building now.
The Calendar Filling In Behind Them
While Clayton's restaurant owners were rethinking their daytime hours, the city was filling in its own calendar with a run of events stretching from early September through late October. None of these require a dinner reservation or an office badge. They are built for whoever happens to be around.
- September 2, Shaw Park: Shakespeare in the Park brings a free performance of Two Gentlemen of Verona from the St. Louis Shakespeare Festival's TourCo.
- September 7 to 21, citywide: the Fall Scavenger Hunt sends participants through Clayton's parks and facilities looking for fall decorations.
- September 17, Hanley Park: the Hanley Fall Festival runs from 5 to 7 p.m. with live music, food for purchase, and kids' activities.
- September 26, the Clayton Dog Park: Bow Wow Bagels & Brews runs from 8 to 10 a.m.
- October 3: the sixth annual Clayton Jazz Festival, presented by Autumn Hill Records, runs from 5 to 10 p.m.
- October 16, Shaw Park: Party in the Patch, hosted jointly by Clayton and Brentwood Parks and Recreation, runs from 6 to 8 p.m. with a candy hunt, hayrides, inflatables, and crafts.
- October 22 to 25: the Clayton Harvest Festival, organized by the Clayton Chamber of Commerce, brings four days of carnival rides, a car and motorcycle show, and a Latin American Festival presented by Compare Foods. The festival traces back to 1951, when the Clayton Merchants Association ran the city's first Cotton Festival, and it now draws more than 30,000 people over its run.
What Eight Weeks in a Row Actually Adds Up To
Look at that list next to the two coffee shops and the pattern gets sharper. The Harvest Festival alone has run since 1951, which means Clayton has been building civic reasons to gather downtown for three quarters of a century, long before any restaurant trend showed up. What changed this year is the daytime economy finally catching up to the calendar. McGuire and Powers are not guessing that people will be downtown this fall. The city already answered that question with a jazz festival that just turned six and a harvest celebration old enough to have outlived the businesses that used to sponsor it.
For residents, that means the next two months are less about picking one event to attend and more about noticing how many reasons there now are to be in Clayton on any given weekday morning or Saturday afternoon. A coffee before work at Gigi's or Toast & Thyme. A Wednesday evening at Shaw Park in September. A Saturday at a Harvest Festival that has been running since your grandparents were the ones setting up the midway.
Clayton does not usually announce when it is entering a new phase. It fills in the gaps quietly, one storefront and one weekend at a time, until the pattern is obvious to anyone paying attention.
If you are watching this kind of neighborhood momentum and wondering what it actually means for a home, a sale, or a move within Clayton, The Realty Shop has spent enough time in this community to read it clearly. Start a Private Conversation whenever you are ready to talk it through.
