The Canteen at 9 Mile Garden names Brooke Burris beverage director

Brooke Burris has been named beverage director at The Canteen, the bar at 9 Mile Garden, a food truck park tentatively slated to open in July in Affton. 

“I’ve been a lover of the local beer scene and have watched it grow over the years,” said Burris, who is cicerone-certified and gained experience in the industry working for Craft Beer Cellar and Grace Meat + Three, as well as doing some related consulting around town. “I’ve just been so involved in the scene here in St. Louis and gained a ton of knowledge.” 

The 9 Mile Garden is Missouri’s first food truck garden and will feature 30 rotating trucks like Seoul Taco, Poptimism and Blues Fired Pizza. Burris expects five trucks to park it during lunch and seven to nine for dinner each day. A schedule will be available online once the garden opens.

The Canteen will offer 40 taps with everything from beer, wine and cocktails to soda and cold brew coffee. 

“With everything going on, it felt super important to focus on supporting the local businesses, so everything will be as local as possible,” Burris said. “Everything is draft, including the cocktails, and it’ll be changing constantly, but we’ll have some of the basics like gin and tonic.” 

Burris’ situation is unique considering she must plan for a bar in a time when the future is uncertain.

“The bar has four huge garage doors that face the food truck park, so we have the option to make it open air … so I think that will be an attractive feature given the current situation,” she said.  

Despite the ever-changing COVID landscape, Burris hopes to maintain the same vibe envisioned for 9 Mile Garden from the beginning.

 “It’s going to be like a food festival every single day,” she said. “We understand that things will be different, and everything will have to obviously be running differently, but we hope the excitement is still there and the sense of the community is still there. … The trucks will all run on electric, so there won’t be any noise from generators, and the whole place will be beautifully landscaped.” 

In addition to plentiful food and drink options, 9 Mile Garden is dog-friendly and will be home to a plethora of family-friendly entertainment.

“We’re going to have a huge permanent movie screen and have movie nights every week,” Burris said. “We have an outdoor stage, so we’ll have live music all the time. And we’ll have a ton of outdoor games like pickleball and bags. On the patio, we’ll have 50 to 75 different board games. … The Canteen will have an indoor foosball and air hockey table as well.”

As 9 Mile Garden and The Canteen continue to build, so does enthusiasm for their completion.   

“It’s the only food truck bar in a park in the state of Missouri, so that’s super exciting,” Burris said. “To be a part of that and watching it all progress and unfold in front of my eyes has just been really unbelievable.”