Camy Bright

After living in New York for the past decade, Josh Smith is trading his television and film career for a move back home, with plans for his highly anticipated first restaurant, Neon Greens, in The Grove. As is the case with many people, the pandemic and its supply chain issues caused Josh to think about the impact of food and where it’s coming from. He started to grow his own food hydroponically to gain a sense of control over his food source. What began as a simple tabletop setup evolved over time into to a whole farm system in his basement. As this quest for sustainable, self-sufficient food continued, Josh became increasingly aware of how much he wanted to share his food with others. “I had all these ideas of creating a modular system that could take up all this useless commercial real estate that we have now," he says. And with that, the plan for Neon Greens began to take shape. 

Hydroponics is a form of closed-environment agriculture that substitutes soil for carefully fertilized and pH controlled water. The plants’ roots are submerged in the water, which can be treated differently depending on the optimal growing conditions for each plant. Hydroponic systems can use natural or LED light, and Neon Greens’ farm-to-table setup will feature both. “But at the end of the day, hydroponics is just another tool to grow produce," Smith says. "And the way that I see it, we have a big agricultural problem in the country. And, there's not one solution.” 

While this will be his debut into the restaurant scene, Smith's passion for food has provided him with years of experience feeding people. He has been known to prepare meals for large groups at dinner parties or in college, and he's always had a feeling he would find a way to share this passion on a larger scale. He sees the connection between his artistic design background and the culinary world as a fluid one. “Food is just like ... another really beautiful way to communicate to other people. And that's what I've been doing my whole life as an artist anyway, so it's kind of just another medium and that whole pantheon of storytelling.”

Neon Greens will fill the space previously occupied by Jesse Mueller's Rise Coffee with a genuine farm-to-table experience, while maintaining the community space vibe. To grow enough greens for their salad-based menu, Josh Smith and his team will utilize two container farming systems produced by startup Freight Farms: Situated outside the restaurant, each will able to yield about three acres of produce. Supplementing the systems will be an open greenhouse structure, also located outside and used for harvesting and washing greens. If that doesn’t sound futuristic enough, Josh plans to have a conveyor belt from this outside growing area connect to the inside kitchen, from which guests will be able to watch their greens come from the farm straight to their table. Each element of the construction branches out from the inspiration for Neon Greens: Customers wanting to see where there food is coming from will be able to do exactly that, in a very sensory way. Smith also hopes this hyper-localized process will cause people to appreciate how amazing even simple greens can taste when grown and consumed close to home. 

On top of the spectacular functional design, Neon Greens will actively use the restaurant to build community. There will be tiered outdoor seating to create the perfect summer oasis to enjoy a refreshing salad with friends, observe the street and continue Jesse Mueller’s legacy in the space. 

The Neon Greens menu will feature ten core salads, with 3 rotating seasonal offerings. Each season, one of the seasonal salads will feature a collaboration with a local chef, with Smith hinting that anything from barbecue joints to bakeries would be welcome to collaborate. In addition to the salads, the menu will feature two soups – a proprietary greens soup and a rotating selection of seasonal varieties, like a refreshing gazpacho in the summer. And, of course, no salad would be complete without bread: Expect the unexpected, like Pão de queijo, a Brazilian cheese bread that uses tapioca flour instead of wheat flour, giving it a mochi-popover crossover experience. For dessert or an anytime treat, Smith is planning to offer seasonal soft serve sundaes in unique flavor combinations like matcha shiso and sesame nougatine. Smith is also passionate about fermentation; he's currently looking at sourcing local kombucha and featuring other live delicacies such as kimchi and pickled veggies. Every salad at Neon Greens can be made vegetarian on request, and most can be made vegan as well. The goal? Restaurant guests are drawn to, with a thoughtful, approachable menu in an innovative setting. 

Smith explains that salad shops like Neon Greens are a staple in New York, but their often-lackluster lettuce is a large motivation for his intentional focus on sustainable, fresh greens. Being new to the industry and opening a brand new restaurant is never an easy task, but Josh has an excellent team and plenty of passion under his belt to accomplish it. “I love doing things and creating things and sharing the ideas and it's like, all that stuff," Smith says. "So I'm having a lot of fun and looking forward to relocating back to my hometown.”

Neon Greens is set to open this summer in The Grove. Follow Neon Greens on Instagram for more information and updates. 

Neon Greens, 4176 Manchester Ave., The Grove, St. Louis, Missouri, neongreens.com

Lead photo: A rendering of the future Neon Greens in The Grove. Courtesy of Neon Greens

Tags Neon Greens Vegan Restaurants Vegetarian Restaurants The Grove Salads St. Louis Salad Places St. Louis