Clayton officials are pushing back on a 7-foot-3-inch screening wall that Café Napoli erected around part of its Forsyth Boulevard patio earlier this year, telling the restaurant it never got the city's approval to build it. The Clayton Plan Commission and Architectural Review Board met on August 3 to review the enclosure and voted to continue the application, asking the restaurant's team to come back with more detailed plans and an accurate site survey before any sign-off moves forward.
The dispute centers on a pergola and screening structure installed around a section of the patio at Café Napoli's longtime home at 7754 Forsyth Boulevard, at the corner of North Bemiston Avenue, across from the Centene Plaza garage, according to Good Food St. Louis. As St. Louis Magazine reports, the restaurant says the enclosure shields diners from headlights, noise and other street activity along one of Clayton's busiest dining corners, and offers a safety buffer for guests seated close to traffic. Restaurant critic George Mahe has described the Café Napoli patio as arguably the best see-and-be-seen corner patio in town, per the same account.
Architect Derek Lauer represented Café Napoli before the board on August 3, telling members that the restaurant had hired both an architecture firm and an engineering firm to redesign the wall after city officials initially pushed back on the structure, according to the City of Clayton. Lauer presented a revised concept: an approximately 5-foot-tall, Italian-inspired stone enclosure with open arches, greenery and lighting, replacing the taller original screen.
Board Members Say the Original Wall Reads as Unwelcoming
Board member Helen DiFate told the panel that anything built above planter height effectively creates a wall, and said the current enclosure appears as an unwelcoming black wall when viewed from North Bemiston, per St. Louis Magazine's reporting. That framing helped shape the board's decision to continue rather than approve the application outright, holding off on any sign-off until Café Napoli submits more detailed plans and an accurate site plan.
Clayton officials reportedly gave the redesigned stone concept a warmer reception than the original screening wall, though the board stopped short of approving it at the August 3 hearing. The Clayton Plan Commission and Architectural Review Board is chaired by Steve Lichtenfeld, with members Jim Arsenault and Chris Brennan and Council Representative Susan Buse joining DiFate in evaluating the project, according to the City of Clayton.
A St. Louis Institution Dating to 1989
Café Napoli was founded in 1989 by Tony Pietoso, a native of Italy, and moved to its current Forsyth Boulevard location a few years after opening, per St. Louis Magazine. Pietoso has said the restaurant negotiated for a 2,500-square-foot space across the street that became a second Café Napoli location, and the original building was intended to become parking. The Pietoso family later added Bar Napoli in 2003 and expanded the flagship into an roughly 8,000-square-foot operation encompassing the main dining room, bar and the Napoli Reserve private event space, now overseen by Kye Pietoso, according to background from Town & Style and the restaurant group's own site.
The family's hospitality footprint has grown well beyond Clayton, with additional Napoli-branded restaurants opened in Town & Country and at the Streets of St. Charles, per the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Tony Pietoso, who came to the U.S. from Florence in 1970 and attended Lutheran High School North before entering the restaurant business, has also built deep community ties in the region; a 2021 fundraiser tied to the restaurant raised $275,000 for the Lutheran Elementary School Association through custom cooking kits and wine pairings, according to the association.
Part of a Broader Wave of Patio Projects in Clayton
The Café Napoli review lands amid a string of high-profile outdoor dining projects moving through Clayton's approval process this year. In April, the Clayton Plan Commission approved a conditional-use permit for a late-night café taking over a vacant Starbucks on Wydown Boulevard, complete with its own patio seating. In July, ice cream and soda-fountain concept Sylvie Dee's announced plans for its largest location yet on Maryland Avenue, also built with an outdoor patio at its center, as Hoodline previously reported. Those approvals suggest Clayton's board is actively shaping how outdoor dining spaces look across downtown, and the outcome of Café Napoli's redesign could set a marker for how future patio enclosures are handled in the city.
For now, Café Napoli's patio project remains in limbo. The Clayton Plan Commission and Architectural Review Board has not granted approvals and will not do so until the restaurant returns with a more detailed and accurate site plan, leaving the final look of one of downtown Clayton's most visible dining corners still unresolved.
