Lost Tables: Stan Musial & Biggie's

Stan Musial & Biggie's

Julius "Biggie" Garagnani, the son of an Italian immigrant miner, grew up on the Hill during the Great Depression. Born April 28, 1913, he left school following the fourth grade and worked odd jobs, including bootlegging, eventually driving a trash truck for the city of St. Louis.

Garagnani became involved in local Democratic politics, serving as a precinct captain prior to his twenty-first birthday. He emerged as a significant force in state Democratic activities, especially in Warren Hearnes' gubernatorial campaigns as a fund-raiser. Twice he attended the Democratic National Convention as a delegate.

Warren Hearnes and Julius "Biggie" Garagnani, 1960s

However, Biggie Garagnani did most of his stumping as a restaurateur.

Biggie and his brother Mike took over the Brass Key, a nightclub at 5443 Magnolia, in the late 1930s. In November of 1946, Biggie and Charles Re, his manager at the Brass Key, took over Cafe 66 at 6435 Chippewa.

St. Louis Star and Times, Nov 21, 1946

The steak house at 6435 Chippewa was soon rebranded as Biggie & Charlie's and then Biggie & Charlie's Steak House. Organist Stan Kann became a fixture at the restaurant in early 1948. And by February of 1948, Charles Re had been bought out and the restaurant became simply Biggie's Steak House.

St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Feb 14, 1947


St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Jan 28, 1948	St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Feb 13, 1948

In a July 1950 article in Sport magazine, Biggie Garagnani told sportswriter J. Roy Stockton how he met Stan Musial.

I met him in the late Sam Breadon’s office when he was just a kid in the major leagues. I had arranged days for some of the ballplayers, starting with a couple of boys who growed up on The Hill, a St. Louis Italian neighborhood, and was with Mr. Breadon in his office when Stan comes in and Mr. Breadon introduces us.
I didn’t know it then, but the first time Stan walks into my place and sees all the people eating and listening to music, he decides he wants to go into the restaurant business. That’s the way he is, he likes people and likes to talk to them. After that, he and his family come to my restaurant pretty regular and we get to talking business. Then one day, he asks me if I want to go hunting, and we go hunting. We go two, three times a week, and you get to know a guy pretty well when you go on hunting trips.

The star outfielder for the St. Louis Cardinals began his major league career in 1941. However, until 1948, Musial and his family spent the off season away from St. Louis at his birthplace and home in Donora, Pennsylvania, about 40 miles from Pittsburgh.

Stan Musial with his wife Lillian and their children, Dickie and Geraldine, Sept 29, 1946

"In 1948, my wife and I decided to make our home in St. Louis," Musial recalled. "I think it’s wise for a baseball player to make his home where he’s made his reputation. I always worried about my baseball career, about getting hurt, and I wanted a business to fall back on."

Biggie also remembered Musial wanting a home and a business in St. Louis.

Then Stan says he wants to go into business, like me, because he likes St. Louis and is going to live there, and will I help him buy a house – pick one out, I mean. He says some people want him to move out in Ladue, where the society folks live, but he likes a place in the neighborhood near my restaurant. I tell him, "Stan, if you like the house, take it, and don’t worry about the price. The main thing is do you like it."
So Stan buys a house and then he talks some more about going into business. Finally, he says, "Biggie, what I would like is to be partners with you."
That kind of puts me on the spot. I asks him does he mean it and he says that he does. To show you what a hold the guy has on me by that time, I tell him, "Okay, you’re in business."

However, Musial had just paid cash for his new home and had little capital to invest. Biggie was undeterred.

I don’t charge him nothing for good will, because I’m smart enough to know he’ll have more good will than I got. You’d be amazed at the bankers and lawyers and doctors and reputatious business men he knows, and I mean knows really well, who call each other by their first names. So I call in the bookkeeper and ask for a financial statement of what I have put into the business and also an inventory. And all I charge Stan is exactly half, or 50 percent, of what I already have got put in the business.

Biggie proposed that Musial's contribution would be $25,000, representing half of the restaurant's value. He suggested Musial, for his half ownership, compensate him from his share of the profits.

Musial officially became Biggie's partner in January of 1949. But Musial was no ordinary partner, as Biggie well knew. He sought to capitalize on Musial's star status and enormous popularity, renaming the restaurant Stan Musial and Biggie’s Steak House.


Stan Musial, Mar 6, 1948	St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Jan 21, 1949

Stan Musial & Biggies, 6435 Chippewa, 1949
(click image to enlarge)

Biggie recalled that one of the first things Musial wanted was an office and a secretary.

He is very conscious-stricken about answering all mail, as well as letters and postcards, from no matter who writes, especially kids. So we spent $2,000 putting in an office upstairs and we hired a secretary.
We bought 5,000 photographs of Stan and in one year we gave about 2,000 of them to visitors and tourists who stopped in the restaurant, all of them autographed personally with a few words written especially to each person who wanted the picture. No rubber stamps for Stan. He wrote every one of them personally. And we mailed out 3,000 photographs to people all over the world who wrote in and said they’d like a picture.

Biggie with Stan Musial in his office, 1950

Stan and Biggie’s, as the restaurant was popularly known, caught on. Fans could drive hundreds of miles for a ballgame and hope for a glimpse of Musial at mealtime.

With Musial attracting more and more customers, business increased by 40 percent in the first year. In 1950, the restaurant was enlarged, with the addition of a cocktail lounge and expansion of the main dining room to accommodate 250 persons. The workforce increased from fourteen to thirty-seven to deal with the new business.

Stan Musial & Biggies, 6435 Chippewa, early 1950s

Stan Musial & Biggie's featured Musial's presence on a limited basis during the baseball season and almost daily otherwise, a routine Biggie tried to moderate.

I try to keep Stan from spending too much time at the restaurant, because I figure he’ll lose his valuation if he gets too common. Lots of times he’ll phone and want to come over and I tell him to take a nap and forget it. During the baseball season, he’s very little in the place. He’ll come in about one o’clock in the afternoon with his mail and spend an hour going over it with the secretary. Then he’ll go home, after a sandwich, and take a nap. He likes to sleep a little before going to the ball park for a night game.

After the game, he’ll come by the restaurant with his family and have a snack before going to bed. He’s a pushover for the kids and if there’s any party in the place with youngsters, he’ll slip up to the office and come down with a ball and autograph it for the kids. And whenever he phones and asks about business, he’ll want to know if there are any kids in the restaurant.

Musial visited tables and chatted with the patrons. He soon lost some of his shyness, enjoying the friendly conversation, especially with kids. He laughed easily at his own stories, contributing to the easygoing air that characterized the restaurant.

Biggie Garagnani and Stan Musial, early 1950s

"In the first seven years Biggie and I were partners, the business went up $100,000 a year, every year," Musial recounted. "We’re both conservatives, we don’t like to go out on a limb, but we’ve got the same ideas, a lot. For instance, we change decor every three years or so. We always keep a baseball atmosphere, some of my trophies in front, but we change in the main room."

In 1953, Musial received an oil portrait of himself for his restaurant. The portrait was a gift of fifty of his St. Louis friends, headed by insurance executive Sidney Salomon.

Biggie Garagnani, Sidney Salomon, Stan Musial, Horace McMahon and Joe Garagiola, Jan 8, 1953

Musial ensured that Biggie continued to use the highest quality of meats. Biggie said Musial always inspected the meat in the icebox and once complained because beef wasn't government stamped.

He is crazy about quality, wants everything we do and he does to be the best. If a customer leaves a part of a steak, Stan will come over to me and tell me I’d better find out what was wrong and if there were any complaints to be sure to make amendments.

Musial inspects meat in icebox, 1950

Musial had been a student of good eating places. Musial and Red Schoendienst, during their long years as roommates on Cardinal trips, were the National League’s authorities on good eating places in the league's seven other cities.

According to Biggie, one of the reasons Musial was interested in being partners with him in the restaurant business was his fondness for food. He contributed to the expansion of the menu, adding more seafood dishes.


Stan Musial & Biggie's Steak House Menu, 1950s (click image to enlarge)

Stan & Biggie's became a hangout for St. Louis athletes.

"I had my first sour cream and chives on a baked potato at the old place," Cardinal catcher Tim McCarver recalled. "I was seventeen years old and didn’t have a clue about life or anything.

"Stan put a lot of time in the restaurant," McCarver continued. "They weren’t open on a Sunday, but it was common in those days to play day games on Saturday and Stan was there after the game. The food was terrific."

The restaurant did fabulously well in the 1950s. In January of 1952, Musial and Biggie purchased the Garavelli Restaurant on DeBaliviere Avenue, leased by August Sabadell, catering manger of the Hotel Chase. By 1954, they owned four eateries, the last of which was the Forest Park Hotel Snack Bar.

In 1956, the restaurant at 6435 Chippewa was again enlarged. The original building was doubled in size, increasing capacity to 430 diners.

The first phase of the work was the construction of a 21 by 90 foot wing at the west end of the building, which later was extended 11 feet to provide an entire new front. An enlarged lobby and an addition to the main dining room resulted.

A private dining room called the "Red Bird Room" was added, with red velvet draperies and a mural depicting Cardinal players and baseball scenes.

Stan Musial & Biggies, 6435 Chippewa, late 1950s

St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Apr 14, 1957
(click image to enlarge)

On February 17, 1961, a new Stan Musial & Biggie's formally opened at 5130 Oakland Avenue, adjacent to Highway 40 and across from Forest Park. The restaurant on Chippewa had been closed, but was expected to be renovated and reopened. However, later that year, Biggie leased the building to Hurley Brady, who planned to open his own restaurant and cocktail lounge in the space.

Stan Musial & Biggies, 5130 Oakland Avenue, April 1961
(click image to enlarge)

The elegant new facility became one of the city's finest restaurants. Its lobby featured Musial's memorabilia, including trophies and autographed baseballs, reminders of his accomplishments.

Stan Musial & Biggies Lobby, 5130 Oakland Avenue, April 1961
(click image to enlarge)

The restaurant featured a large main dining room on the first floor, which seated 225 patrons, and a cocktail lounge, which seated 84. The second floor contained two private dining rooms, the Colonial which seated 300 and the Imperial which seated 175. These dining rooms hosted numerous political events and became a favorite place for sports banquets. Most Cardinal related social functions took place there.

Stan Musial & Biggies Main Dining Room, 5130 Oakland Avenue, April 1961
(click image to enlarge)


Stan Musial & Biggie's Menu, Early 1960s (click image to enlarge)

Stan Musial retired as an active baseball player at the end of the 1963 season. The Cardinals made him a vice president, and he remained in the position until after the 1966 season. Before the 1967 season began, the Cardinals named Musial the team's general manager.

Musial successfully juggled his restaurant business and his general manager duties until June 19, 1967, when Biggie Garagnani died suddenly of a heart attack at age fifty-three. Musial had relied on Biggie for his business acumen and psychic muscle. Now at a shockingly early age, Biggie was gone.

Stan Musial and Biggie’s continued to thrive into the 1970s, with Biggie's son Jack becoming Musial's partner. In 1973, they acquired the St. Louis Hilton Inn near Lambert Airport and opened "Le Place de St. Louis" restaurant in the hotel.

But the business began to decline as an aging Musial withdrew more and more from the day to day operations, including the iconic restaurant on Oakland Avenue. Stan Musial and Biggie’s restaurant served its last meal on New Year’s Eve of 1986. As Auld Lang Syne echoed through the building . . . so did Julius "Biggie" Garagnani.

When I took Stan Musial in as a partner in my restaurant, I needed a partner about as much as I needed a new outboard motor for my automobile. Which gives you a rough idea of how fond I am of this smiling kid from Donora, Pennsylvania, who I consider without any disqualification to be the greatest guy and the greatest ballplayer of my career.

Stan Musial & Biggies, 6435 Chippewa, 1949