Russell’s Cafe & Bakery will close its Chesterfield location this Sunday

Russell’s Cafe & Bakery will close its Chesterfield location this Sunday, Sept. 27, according to a press release. The space at 14888 Clayton Road opened in December 2017 and was the third Russell’s after the Fenton and Macklind locations.  

Owner Russell Ping cited COVID as the primary reason for the closing. “The Chesterfield location just has a much higher overhead than the others,” he told Sauce. “We tried to hold on as long as we could, but it was just not enough income coming in to support that business.” 

Ping said they had hoped to make it to the fall, but when they realized that schools weren’t opening up and that their catering wouldn’t be bringing in as much revenue, they didn’t see a way forward for the West County cafe. “When this first happened, it was horrible for everybody in the business,” Ping said. “We did our budgets and got the [Paycheck Protection Program] money and knew how long we would be able to hold out.” But when business didn’t return to normal at the end of the summer, they decided to focus on their other locations.

New to Russell’s on Macklind is the Family Table Dinner, a three-course menu served family-style for both dine-in and carryout. Ping said the menu will change weekly, as new desserts, drinks and more are introduced. For that service, Russell’s encourages reservations due to limited seating.  

Going forward, Ping intends to focus on the strengths of both locations - Fenton as more of a counter-service cafe model and Macklind as a full-service restaurant. “How do we better define each one of those concepts?” Ping asked, saying that they aim to further explore their brand and the kinds of food they’re making. “That’ll be an interesting project for us to be working on - polishing those two things under this Russell’s brand. And hopefully, a couple years down the line, being back in the mode to think about expansion again.”