A seismic shift is about to take place in the St. Louis restaurant scene: Elaia, Olio and Nixta, all part of the renaissance that made the city’s Botanical Heights neighborhood a food lover’s destination, are moving. Owner Ben Poremba confirmed the news to the Riverfront Times, following a Facebook post in which he announced the move on Saturday afternoon.
“Change opens up new opportunities that may not have previously been considered,” Poremba wrote on Facebook. “I won't lie — the closing of this chapter in my journey is more than a little bittersweet. However, this next chapter is filling me up with the same kind of exuberance and outburst of creativity that I felt twelve years ago. I am thrilled to announce that the Delmar Maker's District will become a new home for us where we will once again get the opportunity to help shape and transform the community around us.”
The Delmar Maker’s District is also located in the city, on Delmar Boulevard between Kingshighway and Union.
According to Poremba, the move is the result of failed negotiations to purchase the buildings that house Elaia, Olio and Nixta from its owner, Chris Hulse. Though Poremba had hoped to purchase the buildings, he felt he had no other choice but to move once it became clear that he and Hulse could not come to an agreement on the terms.
Now, Poremba says he is only focused on the future.
“I meant what I said in the letter,” Poremba tells the RFT. “There is a real upside to all of this in the sense that I get to work with new people, I get to rebuild this the way it should be built, and I get to come to a new neighborhood and do this all over again.”
Though he is excited about the move, Poremba admits to feeling a range of emotions. When he first stood on the corner of Tower Grove and McRee avenues — a part of town then known as McRee Town — he saw nothing but possibility in the neighborhood’s broken-down buildings, derelict gas station and empty storefronts. He channeled his enthusiasm and creative energy into the area, opening Elaia in a converted duplex and its sister restaurant, Olio, in the property’s semi-adjacent renovated gas station, in 2012.
Their presence sparked a renaissance in the area, with new business like La Patisserie Chouquette, Nixta, AO & Co., Union Loafers, Indo and a variety of boutique retail shops creating one of the city’s most bustling food neighborhoods and earning the new moniker of Botanical Heights.
Poremba hopes he can bring that same energy to the Delmar Maker’s District, which developer Jim McKelvey and Third Degree Glass Factory founder Doug Auer are working to turn into a thriving arts and innovation hub.
“Delmar has an international stigma as the center of everything that is wrong with America,” Poremba says. “I felt like, if we are doing this, let’s go north to where we think we can do something. Really, this all came down to my rapport with Doug and Jim and their vision for the neighborhood and their commitment to the neighborhood.”
As for a timeline, Poremba says that there will be some delay between the closure of Elaia, Olio and Nixta in their current spaces and the opening in their new digs. All three will close at the end of this year, and he does not expect the new spaces to be ready until well into 2024. Before any of the three reopen, he plans to launch a new concept, also in the Delmar Maker’s District, which he will announce in the coming weeks.
Following that, he hopes that Nixta will be ready to open in its new space in mid-March, with Elaia and Olio ready to again welcome diners in mid-to-late summer of 2024.
La Patisserie Chouquette, which is owned by Simone Faure but which Poremba is affiliated with, and Poremba’s food-focused market AO&Co. will remain where they are, Poremba says.
Poremba hopes that guests who have developed a special places in their hearts for Elaia, Olio and Nixta over the years will have their chance to say goodbye to the current iterations, but he hopes they will do so with an eye to all of the exciting things to come — which is exactly how he is looking at this change.
“We have identified so many different things we can do w that stretch between Union and Kingshighway on Delmar,” Poremba says. “I’m going to work at the same speed I did 12 years ago to populate and attract other great operators and really make a thing out of it.”
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