Missouri’s oldest restaurant closed this year. A new group is working to reopen it
In February, without much fanfare, the oldest restaurant in Missouri quietly went dark.
Arrow Rock’s J. Huston Tavern, which has long boasted of being the oldest continuously operating restaurant west of the Mississippi River, closed after the local preservation group that had operated it since 2019 exercised a termination clause in its contract with the state, leaving the historic restaurant’s future uncertain.
Now a path forward for the J. Huston Tavern appears to be coming into view, thanks to the creation of the J. Huston Tavern Society, a new nonprofit whose mission is to reopen the restaurant.
“The whole goal is just to save the tavern,” said Leslie Huston, president of the group. “We’re a nonprofit, and really our sole purpose is to get it back up and running and make it sustainable for Arrow Rock and all the people that come here for our history, for the (Arrow Rock Lyceum) theater and for the camping.”
Huston’s husband, Nick, is the great-great-great-grandson of Judge Joseph Huston, who was a founder of Arrow Rock and built the restaurant in 1834. The state of Missouri purchased the building in 1923. It is part of the Arrow Rock Historic Site.
Missouri State Parks has long bid out the space to various operators — most recently Friends of Arrow Rock, which cited a need to preserve and protect its financial resources in terminating its contract with the state in February.
The state put the restaurant out for bid this spring, hoping to attract a concessionaire to run it. But no bids came in. Anticipating that, Huston had been working to set up a nonprofit “to be the safety net,” she said. The J. Huston Tavern Society received its nonprofit designation in May and last week inked a partnership with the state to oversee the facility.
The nonprofit will receive some funding from the state and also solicit donations, Huston said.
“We’d like to reopen later this year — maybe sometime in the fall, but we don’t have a specific date yet,” Huston said. “Priority one is hiring a chef and general manager.”
She said they plan to serve an “upscale buffet” on days when there are shows at the Arrow Rock Lyceum Theater, plus regular dinner service in the offseason and on nights when there are no performances. The menu will likely be informed by the new chef, but Huston said the fried chicken, the restaurant’s longtime signature dish, will stay on the menu.
The nonprofit plans to create a small bar area in the space as well.
“The idea is that it will be a little bit of a more relaxed atmosphere with comfortable seating and some small plates,” Huston said. “A place where you can kind of hang out and don’t have to have a whole meal.”
Apart from reopening the restaurant, the J. Huston Tavern Society intends to open a provisions store in the space, where visitors can purchase milk, bread, eggs, nonperishables and some gifts.
“The tavern used to have a mercantile shop for travelers on the Santa Fe trail,” Huston said. “So we want to bring some of that back, because right now the closest place for necessities is either Boonville or Marshall, which are a 20 minute drive either way.”
Huston said the best place for potential chefs or donors to get in touch with the J. Huston Tavern Society is through the tavern’s Facebook page or at jhustontavernsociety@gmail.com.
“The big overall message,” she said, “is that we want the tavern to be a pillar of the community again.”
