Editor’s note: This article was updated with comments from John Perkins at 4 p.m. Dec. 31.
Cassy Vires will join Juniper’s kitchen as head chef, according to an announcement made on Dec. 30 by Juniper chef-owner John Perkins. Vires will fire up the kitchen Jan. 8 after the restaurant’s team returns from its week-long break beginning tomorrow, Jan. 1.
The news comes just a few weeks after Vires and her husband and business partner, Josh Renbarger, announced they would close doors at their Maplewood eatery Home Wine Kitchen tonight, Dec. 31. Perkins said Vires would be a valuable, reliable asset as Juniper continues to grow, adding that Vires would help take the CWE eatery to the next level. “It was a meeting of needs on both our parts,” he said. “I needed somebody that I could trust the restaurant in their hands when I wasn’t there, and she clearly fits that requirement.”
Perkins said while the menu would still stay true to Juniper’s Southern roots, it was possible that some of Vires’ popular Home Wine Kitchen Dishes could make their way to the menu in 2015. “There’s some natural overlap,” he said.
The baton-passing is the latest transition for Juniper’s kitchen staff, which has been in flux since late October. Former chef de cuisine Ryan McDonald and sous chef Tommy Andrew left Juniper to take a position at Truffles and Butchery. Chef Nick Martinkovic, formerly of Death in the Afternoon and Blood & Sand, has lent a hand at the Southern eatery since early December before he departs St. Louis for his new job at Emko in West Palm Beach, Florida after tonight’s dinner service.
“I think having Home close and Nick (Martinkovic) leaving basically at the same time, it seemed like a real natural thing,” Perkins said. “I reached out when I found out about Home, and it seems like it’s going to be a great fit.”
This article appears in December 2014.