There was a routine that used to define an afternoon at Plaza Frontenac. You'd catch a matinee at the six-screen Landmark cinema tucked next to Saks, grab Tex-Mex at Canyon Café afterward, then wander the corridor between Neiman Marcus and Louis Vuitton with nowhere particular to be. That loop closed over roughly the past nineteen months, one link at a time, even as the mall's storefronts filled with names St. Louis has never carried before.
Plaza Frontenac has added apparel retailers while losing several longtime destinations, including its cinema and Canyon Café. The changes have reshaped the mall's mix of stores, dining, and entertainment.
The New Arrivals
Aritzia opened its doors on June 4, 2026, a 10,000-square-foot store on the mall's first floor and the Vancouver-based retailer's first location in Missouri. Before Frontenac, the closest Aritzia was in Leawood, Kansas, which means the store isn't just new to the mall, it's new to the entire state.
It joined a fashion floor that's been quietly rebuilding itself since the spring of 2025, when Anthropologie relocated from the St. Louis Galleria and reopened at Plaza Frontenac on March 5, becoming the region's only Anthropologie location under a new roof. Abercrombie & Fitch signed on the same year. Between the three of them, Plaza Frontenac picked up a run of national retailers that had either never touched St. Louis or had planted their flag somewhere else first.
That's a real shift for a mall built in 1974 around two department stores and not much else, then reworked in 1994 with a strategy that leaned on hospitality as much as merchandise. The 2025 and 2026 additions aren't part of that hospitality push. They're straightforward retail bets, and they're landing.
What Arrived, What Left
| Added | When | Left | When |
|---|---|---|---|
| Anthropologie (relocated from St. Louis Galleria) | March 2025 | Landmark Plaza Frontenac Cinema | February 2025 |
| Abercrombie & Fitch | 2025 | Canyon Café | January 2026 |
| Aritzia (first Missouri location) | June 2026 | Saks Fifth Avenue | May 2026 |
The list shows a change in the mall's mix: new apparel retailers alongside closures of a cinema, restaurant, and department store.
The Saks Closure
Saks Fifth Avenue has anchored Plaza Frontenac since the mall opened, which makes its closure the most consequential item on that list even though it was the least surprising by the time it happened. Saks Global filed for bankruptcy protection in January 2026, and by March the company had confirmed it was closing a dozen Saks Fifth Avenue stores nationwide, including Frontenac's, as part of a broader effort to shed underperforming locations. A Missouri WARN notice put a number on it: 65 employees losing their jobs, with the store's operations winding down between May 6 and May 31.
Neiman Marcus, the mall's other original anchor, is staying. That distinction matters more than it might seem. Plaza Frontenac was one of only nine malls in the country built around both luxury department stores as anchors, and losing one without the other leaves a real gap in the wing that Saks occupied, but it doesn't strip the mall of its identity the way a full anchor exit would. What it does mean is that for the first time since 1974, half of the mall's founding architecture is gone.
The Cinema and Restaurant Closures
The Saks closure and the new fashion arrivals get the headlines, but the quieter story is what happened to the reasons you'd spend two hours at Plaza Frontenac instead of twenty minutes.
The Landmark cinema closed for good on February 23, 2025, after nearly three decades as St. Louis's home for arthouse and foreign film. It wasn't a multiplex. It served beer and wine, ran film festival screenings, and gave people in Frontenac and the surrounding suburbs a reason to treat a Tuesday night at the mall as something worth dressing for. Nothing has replaced it.
Canyon Café followed less than a year later, closing on January 25, 2026, after serving Southwest and Tex-Mex food at Plaza Frontenac since November 1995. Employees reportedly found out only days before the doors closed. It was the kind of restaurant you'd default to without thinking hard about it: casual, dependable, the place you ended up at because it was already there.
Fleming's Prime Steakhouse, Brio Italian Grille, and Bricktops Restaurant are all still operating in the outparcel lots. Canyon Café's closure removed the casual, in-between option that used to bridge a shopping trip and an actual meal.
I've made the Canyon Café loop enough times over the years to notice its absence before I noticed the new storefronts replacing it. That's usually how it goes with a mall's slow reshaping. You register what's missing on your feet before you register what arrived in a press release.
Plaza Frontenac's Paid Parking Program
In February 2026, Plaza Frontenac introduced its first paid parking program, setting aside about 120 of its roughly 2,500 spaces at $2 an hour, payable by scanning a QR code. It's a small slice of the total lot, and it's easy to read as a minor operational tweak.
Coverage of the Saks closure noted that the mall's ownership group described the vacancy as an opportunity to reshape that wing of the property. Saks's departure leaves a vacant space in the wing it occupied.
What This Actually Means If You Live Here
If you're in Frontenac, Ladue, or Town & Country and Plaza Frontenac has been part of your rotation for years, the practical shift is a changed mix of stores and amenities. The fashion floor genuinely earns a trip if you're after something Aritzia, Anthropologie, or Abercrombie carries that you can't find elsewhere in the metro. The cinema and Canyon Café closures mean those former options are no longer available at the mall.
These changes are worth knowing if you have previously planned a visit around the cinema or Canyon Café.
We spend a lot of time paying attention to how West County's commercial corners shift, because those shifts tell you almost as much about a neighborhood's rhythm as the homes do. If you're curious what else has changed nearby, or you're weighing a move within Frontenac and want a read on the streets, not just the storefronts, The Realty Shop is always glad to talk it through.
