{Belgian waffles with berry compote at County Seat Cafe}
Jonesing for a shortstack at 1 p.m. on a Wednesday? Two new restaurants can both sate your craving, whether you’re in St. Louis or across the river in Edwardsville.
County Seat Cafe adds its name to a growing roster of 2014 openings in Edwardsville, a list that includes Brevan’s Patisserie, Doc’s Smokehouse, Stur, Uncle Munkey’s and Cunetto’s, while Gulf Shores and Social Gastropub are slated to open this fall. County Seat Cafe opened quietly July 21 at 316 S. Buchanan in Edwardsville, serving home-style American fare in a spot formerly occupied by a Pizza Hut.
Stefanie Franklin owns the restaurant with her parents, Scott and Belinda Franklin. The family has been in the restaurant industry for years – but on the supply end. Scott Franklin owns Franklin Fixtures, an Edwardsville-based restaurant equipment supplier, where Stefanie Franklin has worked for years. “I have wanted to open a restaurant since I was little, but we’ve always been on the other end of it,” she said.
Head chef Randy Lueker, who previously worked at Peel in Edwardsville, makes approximately 80 percent of the food from scratch, Franklin said. Breakfast staples are served until 2 p.m. daily, including enormous pillow-shaped biscuits, which are topped with a country sausage milk gravy. Other dishes are more whimsical like pineapple upside-down pancakes, which are cooked over roasted, sliced pineapples and maraschino cherries and served with whipped brown sugar-cinnamon butter and drizzled with butter toffee sauce.
Traditional fare like soups, salads, sandwiches, burgers, steaks, fish and pasta populate the lunch and dinner menu. Dishes include double hand-dipped fried chicken, a BLT club with basil pesto mayo and a Reuben with corned beef brined, cooked and sliced in-house.
County Seat Cafe seats 72, and pictures of the old Court House in Edwardsville and old pictures of downtown Edwardsville adorn its walls. “We wanted to pay homage to old Edwardsville,” Franklin said. The Restaurants is open from Sunday through Thursday from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m and until 9 p.m. on Friday and Saturday.
{Sweet and spicy chipotle wings with cheese fries from Taste Budz Take Out}
Meanwhile, in the Skinker DeBaliviere neighborhood, Eric Tomlin and chef Jason Dickerson are slinging diner fare fast and furious at Taste Budz Take Out. Tomlin opened Taste Budz in May at 280 DeBaliviere Ave., the former home of The Kitchen Sink.
Dickerson, who used to work with Tomlin at his previous North County spot Best Happy Hour, is a graduate of Le Cordon Bleu College of Culinary Arts in St. Louis. Tomlin aims to give students and other busy individuals in the neighborhood a quick spot for tasty takeout. Dishes like hot sandwiches, chicken wings, salads and fish dinners are all cooked to order 15 minutes or less, Tomlin said, including breakfast anytime. “For some reason, people like to eat breakfast all day,” he said. “It gets hard for everyone working on a budget, and a lot of students don’t work or are on an allowance. I want to give them good food fast.”
About 15 seats seats are available to dine-in. Taste Budz Take Out is open Monday to Friday from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. and Saturday from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m.
County Seat Cafe reporting by Greta Weiderman; Taste Budz Take Out reporting by Grace Kennedy.
This article appears in September 2014.