Urban Eats feeds Dutchtown revival
On June 20, the Vital VOICE sat down with the husband and wife duo of Caya Aufiero and John Chen, co-owners of the newly-opened Urban Eats Café and Bakery, located at 3301 Meramec St. in the city’s Dutchtown neighborhood, south of the more well-known Grand South Grand area.
The café offers free Wi-Fi and a free conference room for meetings. Urban Eats is also dog-friendly with exterior seating and hooks available for attaching leashes.
The owners discussed the advantages of a flexible menu, the concept of the third place and their role in revitalizing the Dutchtown neighborhood.
VV: How would you summarize the menu?
CA: We say Urban Eats ... is a casual, but cool neighborhood place ... serving a select few tasty, healthy foods with an ethnic twist – made fast, and customized to your individual taste and pocketbook. There are three main offerings--paninis, flatbread pizzas and wraps ... We use Companion Breads for our paninis ... [We have] a variety of different [paninis], including vegetarian, and the same ingredients can be transferred to a wrap or a flatbread pizza. We use a naan type of a flatbread, which is an Indian type of flatbread, we use Mexican wraps, [and] we use Italian-style bread. We like different ethnicities and different types of ethnic flavorings. It’s kind of an interesting combination to have an Indian flavored flatbread with Italian meats and homemade basil pesto. We try to keep things healthy and fresh, but interesting and affordable.
VV: Why is this the menu you selected?
CA: It’s just healthier – a little bit of a healthy twist ... I think we wanted something to be affordable, but very flexible, very configurable ... and fast, so that it’s quickly prepared. The goal is to have everything prepared within five to seven minutes. ... If you can get in and out – if you need to take something home – [you] can fax it in or text it in or e-mail us an order and have it ready to be picked up on the way home. It’s just what people like to be able to do nowadays
VV: You’ve mentioned [implementing] the concept of the third place. Can you define that?
CA: [It] used to be when people lived and worked in their own little community they didn’t commute 50 miles one way to work by themselves in a car. ... The things that were important to them in their lives were home and family, their work, and their community. Those are the three things and the third place oftentimes ... might have been the neighborhood pub on their way home from work. They might take an hour coming from work to home because they stopped at the neighborhood pub. And it wasn’t just men drinking; it was families who actually went to the pubs. Or you have other social gatherings – like church gatherings or organizations, club type [of] gatherings. There’s always a third place away from home and away from work and that you can go and be with other people. ... The third place concept is a concept of community and having that place to go and relax.
In addition to co-owning and overseeing operations at Urban Eats, Aufiero also serves as the president of the Downtown Dutchtown Business Association. She has been active in the local revitalization effort, of which she sees the café a vital part.
CA: We really want this to be a neighborhood gathering place. ... That’s what we wanted from day one when we bought this building and we saw this space, we said ‘Its best use is a place for people in the neighborhood to gather.’ This corner [Meramec Street and Virginia Avenue] is an important [part] of what used to be a really vibrant neighborhood commercial district. ... Things have changed over the years. The neighborhood commercial district isn’t as vibrant as it used to be. We’re trying to resurrect it. This particular corner is pivotal in that resurrection. We waited several months [to hire a manager] because we didn’t actually get the type of person we wanted. ... We wanted someone who understands urban city economics, who lives and works here, and is also optimistic and positive about the future.
