Yellowbelly

Travis Howard and Tim Wiggins, the team behind Retreat Gastropub, opened Yellowbelly in September 2018 in the Citizen Park building at 4659 Lindell Boulevard in the Central West End. The concept is "Sea & Spirits": a coastal-inspired seafood restaurant — ceviche, crudo and whole fish alongside comfort plates — welded to a craft cocktail bar built around sugarcane and agave spirits. Celebrity chef Richard Blais was brought in to help develop the opening menu, but the identity of the place has always belonged to its bar: Wiggins runs the beverage program, and in 2020 the pair added Lazy Tiger, a dedicated cocktail bar in the lush space next door.

The zero-proof side is a signature, not an afterthought. In early 2021, Feast Magazine covered the launch of Yellowbelly's nonalcoholic cocktail line, for which Wiggins developed a blend of hydrosols, or "botanic water" — distillations of fresh leaves, fruits and flowers meant to give alcohol-free drinks the flavor and mouthfeel of the real thing. That technique is still on the menu today: the current list marks four N/A cocktails at $10 — the Belly Bump (pineapple, coconut, turmeric, ginger beer, nutmeg), Piña Co-Nada (fresh pineapple, coconut cream, lime), Toothless Tiger (peppercorn hydrosol, serrano chile honey, lime, Tajín) and Jungle Feather (N/A aperitif, pineapple, lime) — plus Best Day Brewing's nonalcoholic Kölsch at $6.

The room has stayed relevant well past its opening buzz. In a March 2025 feature, Sauce Magazine called Yellowbelly and Lazy Tiger "a dynamic duo in the Central West End," describing Yellowbelly as tropical, trendy and fun with the bar and kitchen equally yoked, and St. Louis Magazine's roundup of the city's best nonalcoholic cocktails praises its creative, crowd-pleasing drink list. Expect a lively, beachy dining room, dinner Tuesday through Saturday with a Saturday brunch, happy hour Tuesday–Friday from 5 to 6:30pm, and reservations on Resy — with the sister cocktail bar Lazy Tiger sharing a wall if you want to keep the night going.