What the Edwardsville area needs is one more restaurant.
Really.
“We think that with our ambiance and our location and what we’re serving – steaks and fresh seafood – that we’re filling a niche,” says Adam Washburn, the co-owner of the soon-to-open Craft Chophouse, on Buchanan Street, across from Edwardsville City Park. “We’ve heard the same from many people coming through here.”
Washburn is the restaurant’s master chef. After graduating from Edwardsville High School in 2002, he left for the New England Culinary Institute, in Vermont, where he graduated with an associate’s degree in culinary arts. Then for six years he honed his culinary skills at Andria’s Countryside Restaurant in Edwardsville. He has been a sous chef at Gentelin’s on Broadway and Chef de Cuisine at Sunset Hills Country Club in Edwardsville.
Craft Chophouse will open in a couple of weeks. Washburn is a co-owner, along with his fiance Megan Pashea and her dad, John Pashea. Edwardsville Mayor Gary Niebur said the restaurant will be a welcome addition to the city. “We are certainly looking forward to the opening and appreciate the investment that they are making in Park Plaza and downtown Edwardsville,” Niebur said.
On a recent morning, Megan Pashea led a tour of the building as workers continued to get the place ready. At the entranceway, a solid wood door will be installed soon that will greet customers, and off on the Buchanan Street side of the building is an open-air patio area. “A lot of people don’t realize when they drive by that we have a patio,” Megan Pashea says. “But once we show it to them, they get very excited. People love to sit outside. This is really a good space.”
Each table is butcher-style stained walnut, which imparts a warm tone to the dining room, John Pashea says.
The interior will be offset by drapes, he noted. “They’re very unique,” he said. “There’s nothing like them in any restaurant around. It’s going to add a lot of atmosphere.”
John Pashea began working for Kretschmar in 1984 and today is Vice President of Deli Sales for Kretschmar Premium Deli.
Craft Chophouse will employee 35 to 40 people. Interviews began in July. “A lot of people don’t spend a lot of time training, but that’s something we really wanted to focus on,” Megan Pashea says.
Her father adds, “In this business, you can make customers overnight or you can lose customers overnight. We want this to be successful for the city, and for all our guests. We want them to come here and enjoy themselves, and we want them to come back.”
Three chandeliers will hang down the center of the restaurant, each chosen by Megan. Sconces will sit atop pillars. All of it is very, very unique, John Pashea says.
A bar area to the right of the entrance will feature reclaimed bar wood and restained walnut.
Soon Washburn began leading a brief tour of the grill, which is an open area that allows customers to see the food preparation. The grilling area is spacious, featuring a 10-burner range with a double oven below. There is also a 36-inch flat top, a 48-inch char broiler, a double deck oven, and two fryers at the end. Around the corner is a dish washing station.
The grilling area is compact, “but it’s better that everything is at your fingertips and you don’t have to run upstairs and downstairs for things,” Washburn said.
Pashea and Washburn grew up in Edwardsville and met while they both worked at the Sunset Hills Country Club.
She began bussing tables there and later became a server. Then she moved to a country club in South County. There, she joined a wine club and participated in dinners and wine tastings.
After Washburn got on as a sous chef at the Whitmoor Country Club, the couple bought a house in the St. Charles area.
They realize that once the Craft Chophouse opens, they’re going to spend long hours on their feet. And they seem fine with that. Megan went to school to study court stenography but came to realize that it wasn’t for her. “We both sit back and laugh at the thought of me sitting in a chair all day and not being able to speak to anyone, because that’s not me. . . . Don’t know what I was thinking.”
What’s going to set the restaurant apart from others in Edwardsville is their Sunday brunch. “For a good brunch, you have to drive all the way over to St. Louis, and that’s something that we’ve heard from a lot of people that will be our guests,” John Pashea says.
Clarification
A story in Thursday’s Intelligencer about the opening of Craft Chophouse in Edwardsville implied that the restaurant’s new chef, Adam Washburn, worked at Andria’s Countryside Restaurant until 2011.
In fact, Washburn worked at Andria’s from 1999 until October of 2005.
The Intelligencer regrets the error.