Union Loafers is set to quadruple its bread-making capacity with a new cafe and production facility opening this fall in McKinley Heights. The bakery known for its naturally leavened sourdough is taking over 1854 Russell Blvd, a 4,600-square-foot space that will house the bread production for its flagship Botanical Heights cafe while also serving coffee, pastries and food to neighborhood customers under the name Union Bakehouse and Cafe.
Co-owner Sean Netzer said the expanded space will let Union Loafers quadruple its bread-making abilities, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. That added capacity is expected to help the bakery keep up with demand at its existing locations while also giving it more room to grow its wholesale bread business, per the same report from reporter Hannah Wyman. Netzer and fellow co-owner Ted Wilson opened Union Loafers Cafe and Bread Bakery in 2015 at 1629 Tower Grove Ave., where sandwiches, pizza, drinks and fresh-baked bread have anchored the menu ever since.
A Second Attempt at Expansion
This isn't Union Loafers' first swing at growing beyond its original storefront. The bakery had previously scrapped plans to open a bread shop with local gift retailer Union Studio, an effort that would have placed a shared retail counter and dedicated bread storefront at the corner of Tower Grove and Folsom avenues in Botanical Heights, according to the Post-Dispatch's account of the earlier attempt. That 2023 plan, first detailed by Sauce Magazine, never materialized, and Union Loafers appears to have shifted its strategy toward a centralized production hub rather than another small retail counter near its original location.
The McKinley Heights site carries its own local history. The building at 1854 Russell Blvd previously housed Urban Fort Play Cafe, a neighborhood cafe and children's play space geared toward young families that opened in late 2017, according to Dawn Griffin Real Estate Group. Its transformation into a bread production hub adds another chapter to a stretch of Russell Boulevard that has seen commercial tenants come and go in a neighborhood designated as a local historic district in 2008, with roots as a National Register district dating to 1984 and a population of 1,668 residents recorded in the 2020 U.S. Census, per the City of St. Louis.
Sister Concepts Paved the Way
Union Loafers' expansion into McKinley Heights follows a pattern established by its other satellite concepts around the region. Bagel Union launched in February 2023 at 8705 Big Bend Blvd in Webster Groves, using a three-day hand-rolled fermentation process to produce traditional New York-style bagels, Sauce Magazine reported at the time. That concept later earned a 5-star sustainability rating from the Green Dining Alliance in February 2025 for sourcing ingredients from Missouri farmers, using compostable packaging and converting surplus bagels into bagel chips.
The Station at Thurman, another Union Loafers offshoot, opened in April 2024 at 2232 Thurman Ave. in the Shaw neighborhood as a weekend market and bagel shop operating out of a former gas station and commissary kitchen. Community demand pushed that concept to expand to a five-day schedule by February 2025, according to Sauce Magazine's coverage. Union Bakehouse and Cafe is expected to open in late September or early October, filling a gap between Soulard, Lafayette Square and Benton Park with a new stop for coffee, pastries and food.
A Baker's Journey and a Community Role
Head baker Ted Wilson's path to Union Loafers began far from a bakery. He left a career in the record industry in 2006 to learn bread production at Sullivan Street Bakery in New York City under baker Jim Lahey, before returning to St. Louis to bake at Neapolitan pizzeria The Good Pie, according to Food Network, which later named Union Loafers one of the best bread bakeries in America in March 2020 for its naturally leavened sourdough loaves crafted with Missouri-grown and milled wheat and rye.
Wilson has also played a visible role in supporting fellow St. Louis food businesses. In March, Sauce Magazine reported that he was among several small-business owners who stepped in to help keep operations afloat for Vincent Van Doughnut while its owner recovered from severe injuries, a story Hoodline covered in Vincent Van Doughnut's comeback story. Wilson and Netzer's ties to the local restaurant scene run even deeper, having both worked at 33 Wine Shop in Lafayette Square before opening Union Loafers, a connection noted when Hoodline reported on that shop's closure after 25 years in business.
Union Loafers' flagship cafe sits in Botanical Heights, a neighborhood formerly known as McRee Town before undergoing major revitalization led by the Missouri Botanical Garden's Garden District Commission starting in 2000, according to Town & Style. The upcoming shift of primary bread production to McKinley Heights raises questions about how daily workflow will change at that original Tower Grove Avenue location, which currently balances lunch service, dinner pizza and daily baking under one roof.
