No taste of St. Louis this year but when will we see again

The podcast Campus Files is back with more stories of scandal, crime, and intrigue on college campuses. It is not hard to destroy a college. It's almost like a university under siege. Listen to and follow campus files. Available now wherever you get your podcasts. As we continue on KMOX this morning, Michael Calhoun with you. St. Louis, I don't have to tell you, has one of the best food scenes in the country, one of the most diverse scenes, one of the most innovative scenes. We've got a James Beard Award winner in the last few months now in our midst as well here in St. Louis. But when it comes to the taste of St. Louis, how is that going to move forward and tie all of this together and get us excited about the culinary scene here in St. Louis? Well, the taste has some new... owners. Joining us right now on KMOX is the owner of event management and design, Patrick Sundell, who has partnered with Dustin Rowe to purchase the Taste of St. Louis. Thank you so much for being with us this morning, Patrick. Thanks, Michael, thanks for having us. So what led you to this transaction? Yeah, well, the event community is pretty small in St. Louis, and everyone knows each other. We've actually worked on and off with the festival. Me personally, I've been involved with it since, gosh, 2013 on and off. So, yeah, the opportunity became available earlier this year, and my partner and I just thought it would be a great way to kind of expand into doing a festival that we own as opposed to just doing it for everybody else in town. Give us a little bit of your background. You've worked with, I mean, basically if somebody could name a major festival that's taken place, you know, from Soldiers Memorial to the Arch, it seems like you've been involved with it. Yeah, I mean, the fun one for us this year was Celebrate St. Louis with the 250th. Got to experiment with some different things in a larger budget. So, you know, Dustin provided the talent buying for that. So the big Zed show that took place under the arch, a big feather in his cap. And together we kind of handle all the logistics from top to bottom for that show. You know, in addition to that, you know, we help out the St. Louis Earth Day Festival, Pride Fest, pedal the cause. We do some work for, you know, the Go St. Los Marathon. Yeah, we've been around and just looking to do more in the city of St. List. Now, I can remember Taste of St. Louis, you know, decade plus ago, going down Market Street, you know, filling up that space by City Garden on Cardinals' game days, tens of thousands of people streaming in. Recent years, you know, it's been of different size, different venues, Ballpark Village, controversial shift to Jay Clayton, and some attendance issues. How do you characterize, especially since you've been involved, and now you've got this vision for what you'd like it to be? How do you characterize this journey that the taste of St. Louis has been on lately? Yeah, so having the benefit of having been involved, you know, in 2019, kudos to Chuck and Kyle, the former owners. 2019, we took a huge swing, massive production, and, you know, the return necessarily wasn't there. You know, I'm not going to don't feel comfortable talking about someone else's finances, but you could just tell that.

Maybe the market wasn't quite what we thought it was for that event. So, you know, I think going forward, we want to really just focus on trying to lower the barrier entry for some of the higher-end, you know, niche restaurants in town, kind of give those folks an opportunity to feel like they can, you know. participate in the event and not hamstring them from a financial standpoint. So, you know, as far as going forward, you know, we're just looking to maximize the quality of the restaurants that we have, work in partnership with them as opposed to kind of using them as just revenue stream. And we'll just kind of... grill this thing, you know, from the ground up and we'll emphasize the local food as much as we possibly can. So 2026 sounds like you're taking a pause and are focusing on, you know, building up with the plan is moving forward. And so 2027, could this be downtown again? What are you looking at in terms of a potential location? So, yeah, we've got a short list of potential locations, all three of which are in the city of St. Louis, and that's about as much as I can say for now. But have had some really great conversations with some community partners. Downtown's not off the table, but it's definitely in the running. But, you know, we're just kind of working out with the best situation is logistically for the festival. What makes them most sense? Hopefully we'll have that buttoned up soon. Local event producer Patrick Zundel, who is partnered with Dustin Rowe to acquire the Taste of St. Louis coming back next summer. Thank you so much for getting us up to date on this here on KMOX and can't wait to see what comes next. Awesome. Thanks for the time. Michael. I really appreciate it. I'm Susie Welch, the host of Becoming You, a podcast where I help you stop living by default and start living by design. Listen to Becoming You wherever you get your podcasts.