Chef Steven Pursley has opened Kishimoto Mendō, a new ramen restaurant on the Delmar Loop in University City, Missouri, giving fans of his celebrated Menya Rui a second, much roomier place to slurp his noodles. The new dining room seats about 60 people, more than double the 24 seats at the original Lindenwood Park shop that made Pursley's name.
The opening was detailed in a review by St. Louis Post-Dispatch critic Ian Froeb, who visited the University City space alongside photographer Laurie Skrivan. According to the Post-Dispatch, Kishimoto Mendō serves tonkotsu red ramen, Taiwan mazesoba, gyokai tonkatsu classic ramen, and chicken wings, and it is open for both lunch and dinner. Photos from the visit show Tom Epstein preparing fresh ramen in the restaurant's dedicated noodle room and customers filling seats in the new dining area.
Pursley spent three years learning scratch-made ramen in Japan before bringing that training back to St. Louis, a grounding that has shaped both of his restaurant concepts. According to Sauce Magazine, that training helped earn him a spot among Food & Wine's 11 national Best New Chefs in September 2023, a nod to his scratch-made noodle craft and tightly focused ramen menu at Menya Rui.
From a 24-Seat Cult Favorite to a National Top 100 Pick
Pursley opened Menya Rui on April 21, 2022, at 3453 Hampton Avenue in Lindenwood Park after building a following through a pop-up series called Ramen x Rui, according to Sauce Magazine's first look at the restaurant. The shop quickly became a local sensation, and the same publication named it its Best New Restaurant of 2022, highlighting Pursley's refusal to compromise on making fresh wheat noodles in-house every day.
That acclaim went national in January 2024, when Yelp ranked Menya Rui the No. 2 restaurant in the entire United States on its 11th annual Top 100 Places to Eat in the U.S. list, a ranking announced via Business Wire. Menya Rui was the only Missouri restaurant to make that year's list. Yelp's data also found that Asian and Asian-fusion restaurants made up 25% of the country's top-rated dining destinations, underscoring the broader consumer appetite that has helped fuel demand for specialized noodle shops like Pursley's.
Two Restaurants, Two Distinct Broths
The name Kishimoto Mendō blends Pursley's mother's Japanese maiden name, Kishimoto, with Mendō, meaning noodle hall, while Menya Rui combines the Japanese word for noodle shop with Pursley's middle name, according to Explore U. City. That personal naming convention reflects a broader strategy: Pursley intentionally kept Menya Rui focused on lighter shoyu ramen and broth-less noodle dishes while reserving rich tonkotsu pork-bone broth for Kishimoto Mendō, so the two restaurants would offer distinct identities rather than compete with each other.
Menya Rui still operates under a strict dine-in-only policy with no takeout or delivery, a rule rooted in the Japanese ramen tradition that broth and noodles degrade too quickly to travel well, per the restaurant's own site. It is unclear from available reporting whether Kishimoto Mendō follows the same dine-in-only approach.
A Delmar Loop Reshaped by Independent Kitchens
Kishimoto Mendō's spring 2026 opening at 6394 Delmar Blvd fits into a broader shift on the Delmar Loop toward independent, chef-driven Asian dining concepts, following the departure of national chains such as HopCat, Explore U. City reports. The corridor has already been reshaping itself this year: Hoodline previously covered the arrival of new dining spots including Sakatanoya Revolving Sushi Bar & Ramen at 6683 Delmar Blvd, and later reported on a pop-up takeover at Nudo House on the same strip.
For Pursley, the new location resolves a bottleneck that had built up over four years of runaway demand for his ramen. The original Menya Rui's tiny 24-seat footprint meant long, multi-hour waits even as national recognition piled up, and Kishimoto Mendō's roughly 60-seat dining room gives St. Louis diners considerably more room to experience his scratch-made noodles without the marathon line.
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