New Bar Opens With Partnerships In Ellisville

One of the newest businesses in Ellisville is off to an encouraging start, as the Crafty Chameleon Bar officially opened for business Friday. 

The idea was first "brewed" in Germany where, where David Cislo, the bar's director of operations and Jay Quezada, the majority owner saw, different beers brewed from town to town during their time serving in the military. When they both eventually resettled in the St. Louis area, they saw the rise of microbreweries and craft beer bars, it made sense to jump on the concept now.

Finding a facility with existing bathrooms and an existing beer garden in the former Chevy's restaurant in the Dierbergs shopping center at Clarkson and Clayton Roads made Ellisville an attractive option.

"What we looked at was location, do they want us here, is there interest for it, and how competitive would it be with anybody else and everything was checked off," Cislo said. "This is the place to be...the people want it." 

Cislo said there were 40 taps and 300 bottles of beer, 14 varieties of wine available to watch 15 TVs.

The bar does not offer food but that doesn't mean food isn't available.

Instead, the bar is leaning on the expertise of neighboring businesses in the shopping center, like Windowsills Cafe & Marketplace, among others. Menus from the neighboring businesses are available at the Crafty Chameleon for customers to order and have it delivered to the Crafty Chameleon.

That cooperation, which included suggestions on which menu items to suggest to go with different drinks, also extended to help navigating through government approval processes.

"Everybody in here was real good with helping you getting you going, it's a really nice community atmosphere in here. They came over, gave us tips, 'they might look for this, make sure you guys do this,'" Cislo said.

Cislo said there will be other organic additions to the bar over time, including hanging the work of local artists and the possibility of adding live music.

Hours of operation: Mon - Fri: 3:00 pm - 12:00 am; Sat - Sun: 12:00 pm - 12:00 am