Valerie Dratwick, a senior lab technician in the Department of Art and Design, suggests a way to pose professor Phil Robinson (next to Dratwick) by his two paintings on display at Sundance Cafe. Dratwick, Robinson, Jeff Sippel (second from right) and Michael Behle (far right) all have art on display inside the recently opened Sundance Café located at 8418 Natural Bridge Road. (Photo by Derik Holtmann)

When Breakaway Café, a longtime institution in the Normandy/Bel-Nor neighborhood, closed its doors due to a fire in 2021, Kirk Kirkpatrick made a promise. He told his mother that, if the building was able to be resurrected, he would reopen it as a café again.

A 60-year native of Bel-Nor, Kirkpatrick is passionate about the neighborhood – his parents moved to the area in 1961 and lived in four houses over the years, and he and his sister still live in the area. He wanted to make sure there would still be a neighborhood place for community members, including students, faculty and staff at the nearby University of Missouri–St. Louis, to gather.

Sadly, Kirkpatrick lost his mother just a few months later, in April 2022, but he made good on his promise with the opening of Sundance Café a few weeks ago. Over the course of a year and three months, with the help of the city of Bel-Nor, Kirkpatrick and co-owners Darren Woodford and Jason Cusick brought the much-loved restaurant space back to life.

“Between the city investment and our investment, we brought it back from the ashes, literally,” Kirkpatrick said. “The back half of the building was burned, and the kitchen was completely gutted. We put a lot of time and effort in here, and we’re getting a lot of support. We’ve only been open for two weeks, and we’re getting tremendous support from the local residents – people in St. Ann’s Parish and all of the immediate communities: Bel-Nor, Bellerive Acres, Greendale, Normandy, Pasadena Park and Pasadena Hills.”

Sundance Cafe is open for lunch and dinner during the week, as well as breakfast on Saturdays and Sundays, and also serves beer and wine. Woodford and Cusick own multiple locations of Rich’s Famous Burgers in Steelville, Sullivan and St. James, and the menu at Sundance takes many cues from Rich’s. The signature smashed-style burger is made with a proprietary grind of ground beef and brisket, and the restaurant also offers a version made with an Impossible Foods patty. The menu includes sandwiches, such as a steak sandwich, chicken Caesar sandwich, roast beef and fish fillet, salads and, as of last week, French onion soup. The restaurant will soon add three different pastas to the menu as well.

Phil Robinson, an associate professor in studio art, poses between two of his acrylic paintings, “Mom X” and “Hero X,” both on display at Sundance Café. (Photo by Derik Holtmann)

From the start, the owners envisioned Sundance Café as a community gathering space designed to foster conversation, which is reflected in the space itself. Instead of TVs, the walls are filled with artwork from faculty members in UMSL’s Department of Art and Design, including paintings, drawings and prints from Michael Behle, Valerie Dratwick, Phil Robinson and Jeff Sippel. The works immediately stand out against Sundance’s simple white walls, and Kirkpatrick says they’ve already attracted the attention of diners who enjoy looking at all the artwork and reading about how the works were created.

After the initial faculty showcase, Sundance will rotate the artwork about twice a year, focusing on works from students in the program. Behle, who helped arrange the collaboration with Kirkpatrick, said it is a unique opportunity for students to find an outlet for their works to be exposed to a broader audience.

“Part of what makes art become art is for it to leave the studio of the artist and go into the public sphere,” he said. “For them to have an opportunity to be a part of that is really rewarding and affirming. I’m thinking about a student who was reading about art history and some early artists of the Cubist period and their work being exhibited in a café in Paris, and here’s their work being exhibited in a café in middle America. It just draws parallels where they can see themselves as a part of a long tradition.”

Sundance Café is open Tuesday through Friday from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m., Saturday from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. and Sunday from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. The restaurant is closed on Mondays.