Crossings Taverne and Grille is closing

Crossings Taverne and Grille, the Webster Groves restaurant and bar that has featured live jazz music several nights a week for the last few years, is closing. An item in Sauce magazine - scroll down to the entries for August 3 - says the establishment's landlords want to raise the rent when the current lease expires on August 20, and reports that Crossings' operators were disinclined to renew at the new rate.

In retrospect, the signs that Crossings was in trouble have been coming for several months. In late spring, they stopped sending out email updates on who would be performing there. Then, they stopped updating their Web site (which now comes up with an "account suspended" message from their hosting provider). In July, the club closed unexpectedly for a "vacation" without first notifying the bands scheduled to perform, with the result being that at least one musical act that had been booked didn't learn of the closing until they arrived at the club to set up for their gig.

The Sauce magazine item says Crossings' operators want to reopen at a new location. Meanwhile, the owners of the building shouldn't have much trouble attracting a new tenant to the site in the Old Webster business district, an area that, Crossings' failure notwithstanding, seems to have very few retail vacancies.

Will Crossings succeed in finding a new location? Will another restaurant/bar take Crossings' place? And will either one feature jazz music as part of a live entertainment policy? Nothing else to do but stay tuned...