Lost Tables: Frank and Helen's

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Frank & Helen's

Frank & Helen's Pizzeria was originally Jule's Pizza Palace. It was started by Frank and Helen's brother, Julius Seitz. There were four Seitz siblings — Erna was born in 1919, Helen in 1920, Julius in 1923 and Frank in 1925. All were born in St. Louis.

Julius "Jule" Seitz was a ship's cook and then a chef at the Royal Hawaiian Hotel in Honolulu during World War II. He served as a pizza chef for 15 years in restaurants in Chicago, New York and on the West Coast, before returning to St. Louis to open his own restaurant.

Jule's Pizza Palace opened in 1956 at 7303 Olive Boulevard, on the northwest corner of Olive and Midland, across from the National Food Center.

Jule's Pizza Palace – 7303 Olive Boulevard

Frank Seitz worked for McDonald Douglas during the day and at his brother's restaurant in the evening. Julius taught Frank the business of making pizza. They both lived in the same house at 8371 Braddock in University City. Julius lived upstairs, with his wife Barbara and their daughter; Frank lived downstairs, with his wife Betty and their three sons.

Barbara's father, Oscar Forberg, was born in Muskegon, Michigan. He spent 38 years in Oak Park, Illinois, where Barbara was born. Julius Seitz married Barbara Forberg in 1942. In 1957, Oscar Forberg and his wife returned to Muskegon, and in 1959, Barbara and Julius moved from St. Louis to Muskegon to join them. Julius sold his restaurant in St. Louis and promptly opened a Jule's Pizza Palace in Muskegon.


Julius Seitz – Jule's Pizza Palace Muskegon Chronicle, Jun 5, 1959	Julius & Barbara Seitz

Frank Seitz bought the Jule's Pizza Palace in St. Louis from his brother and changed the name to Frank's Pizzeria. Frank made the pizza and his wife Betty kept the books.

1960 Frank's Pizzeria Menu
(click image to enlarge)

Helen Seitz married William Wentzelman in 1942. They had two daughters; Barbara was born in 1944 and Sharon in 1948.

On September 18, 1958, William Wentzelman died of a heart attack at the age of 43, three days before Sharon's 10th birthday.

My mom was only 37 years old when she became a widow with two young children at home. And it became immediately apparent — what was she going to do to take care of her kids.

Initially, Helen went to beauty school. But her brother Frank convinced her to go in a different direction.

My uncle Frank suggested that she come and work at the restaurant. Frank was smart enough to know he couldn't do it on his own. So he saw an opportunity to bring my mom on.

She was a great cook and it was a great balance. Mom did the day shift and all the cooking prep, and Uncle Frank came in when the restaurant opened at four o'clock every afternoon.

Helen Seitz, circa 1940


Helen Seitz Wentzelman Barbara & Sharon	Helen Seitz Wentzelman

Helen was known in her neighborhood for her homemade lasagna. She brought her lasagna to the restaurant, along with her creamy garlic salad dressing, the recipe a closely guarded secret.

The original recipe had real garlic in it. You have no idea how many cloves of garlic I peeled over the years and many other people peeled and smashed and used, because fresh garlic is what made the difference.

Before long, "Frank's Pizzeria" became "Frank & Helen's Pizzeria."


Early 1960s Frank & Helen's Pizzeria Menu (click image to enlarge)

Frank & Helen's was know for its pizza and its Broasted chicken. The Broaster Company was formed in Beloit, Wisconsin in 1956.

Mom and Frank would always go to the restaurant shows to find the latest, greatest equipment. The big day came when the gigantic Broaster machine came in to play.

They came back from a restaurant show and had seen it demonstrated. It was basically like a pressure cooker for chicken. There was a wheel that would seal down the actual pressure cooker. There was a basket that you would put the chicken inside, lower it into the very hot fryer oil and seal this down. And you'd be able to have a whole chicken dinner, I don't know, in something like six minutes. And it would seal in the juices.

Broaster Machine

They had all the right logos and all the right advertising for how this was the best chicken ever. Along with this company making you use their secret spice recipe, they would have these cards that were put on the table or they would bring a big chicken to put out in front of the restaurant to draw everybody's attention. Even on the sign that said Frank & Helen's, there was a big illumination sign that said home of Broasted chicken.

There weren't other Broasted chicken places in St. Louis, so it became a very popular thing. We used to laugh and say there were some people that would never, ever come in to eat a pizza, but they came in to eat chicken like they'd never had chicken before.

Broasted Chicken Advertising

Frank & Helen's quickly outgrew their initial space and expanded into the adjacent storefront.

They took over the store that was right next to theirs and literally busted a wall between the two and put a large casement opening in and immediately doubled their seating capacity. It was a very charming '60s kind of restaurant. There was a jukebox and pin ball machine and it was very comfortable.

Originally, Frank & Helen's delivered pizzas to their customers.

They hand-delivered pizzas. There was a jeep that was driven by more than one person that I can remember, and I used to often get to ride with him. There were no hot cases and all that kind of stuff. They were bagged like all the other pizzas, and it was get them to the place where they had been ordered from as quickly as possible.

On a Saturday night, they could be extremely busy trying to get those distributed — without GPS either. So you had to know how to get where you were going. They did it clear back in the late '50s and all through the '60s. Eventually, the delivery service stopped because they couldn't manage to make it happen. So it was just carry out after that.

Frank & Helen's – 7303 Olive Boulevard

The restaurant at Olive and Midland was not far from Heman Park and the University City police station.

It used to be a joke that people would come in and think something was wrong at the restaurant. "Why are all the police cars here? Is everything alright?"

And everybody would laugh because the police would just come in to eat, and mom and Frank always gave them their meals. All they ever had to pay was a dollar. That was to prove that they weren't bribing them.

In 1967, Frank and Helen bought a building at 8111 Olive and opened a second restaurant. The space had previously housed Siwak’s Automatic Car Wash. In 1968, they sold the original Frank & Helen's to Ennio Cardinale who put in his own pizza place, Pino's Pizza.

Frank & Helen's – 8111 Olive Boulevard

The new location had a more "modern" decor.

They decided to do what mom lovingly called freshen things up. So they went from one type of atmosphere that was sort of like a '60s place, and tried to become a little more modern.

Their version of modern was they put up paneling; this long hallway was completely covered in dark paneling. When you came into the dining room, they put these mirror tiles on one wall. And of course, that was to make the place look bigger. And it reflected all of these special lights they had made.

The only original ones still there today are the turquoise blue tulip lights by the entryway. The ones that hung over the tables over the years had gotten broken and had to be replaced with these sort of Tiffany multicolored lamps. They don't really go with the blue tulip lights at all. The blue tulip lights matched the color of the banquettes that people sat at.

Frank & Helen's Dining Room, circa 1990

Frank & Helen's was the embodiment of a family-oriented restaurant.

They knew people by name and greeted them. There were so many families that came in, and everybody knew the children and the grandparents, and it was just a real mom & pop kind of place there in U City.

Nothing was ever too much trouble for mom or Frank to try and accomplish. If somebody needed a way to get to the restaurant or someone needed their kid brought home, it was amazing to me that they went out of their way to handle those things.

The waitresses were told they could take out balls of dough and the children would play with the dough at the table until the food was served.

The restaurant never served alcohol back then. They had chosen not to go that route. It was one of the things that made it a real family-friendly place.

Helen Wentzelman died on January 25, 1989 at the age of 68 from breast cancer.

Helen Wentzelman with daughters Sharon (L) & Barbara, 1986

In 1991, Frank Seitz sold Frank & Helen's to Bob and Betty Oddy.

Betty Oddy's maiden name was Walker. She started working at Frank & Helen's when she was 14-years-old. She was very tall and very thin, and since Frank's wife's name was Betty, they nicknamed her Bones.

I was working at Chuck-A-Burger as a car hop. A friend told me I should go try and get in Frank & Helen's. So I lied about my age, told them I was 16 and they hired me.

I wasn't at the location now; it was down at Midland and Olive. I guess that was 1963. It was just like a big family at the restaurant. They welcomed me with open arms. My dad was in a nursing home from a stroke, and my mother was having some mental problems.

When I went to work for Frank & Helen's, it was Frank and Betty, and Frank's sister Helen. I can't remember how long we were there before I moved up to 8111 Olive. But we moved up there. I worked for them for 13 years. They were like my adopted parents.

I got married in 1968 to Ron Bullock, a cook that was at the restaurant. Then in 1977, I quit and divorced my husband, and I went to work at Steak and Ale. I was working there and I was a trainer.

Frank Seitz & Betty Walker at Frank & Helen's

Bob Oddy's career had been in the Army. He was sent to St. Louis to get a masters in correctional psychology. Since he only went to school two or three nights a week, he got a job as a waiter at Steak and Ale, and Betty became his trainer. That was in December of 1978. In December of 1979, they were married.

The Army relocated Bob to multiple locations, and Betty followed. Whenever they returned to St. Louis, they spent time with Frank and Betty Seitz. One night they were out to dinner, and Frank asked if they wanted to buy the restaurant. Bob and Betty Oddy took ownership of Frank & Helen's in 1991.

Bob & Betty Oddy and Betty's daughter, Holly Bullock

The Oddys made very few changes to the menu.

The cooks were not to make any changes on how to serve the items on their plates or change any recipes.

Of course, pizzas were our number one item that we were noted for. At that time, we were selling large pizzas for $15. And they were 18-inch pizzas and up to 10 items. We would put it on all by hand, not weighing any of the items out. So they were getting a good portion of either sausage, pepperoni, vegetables on the pizza, and so on.

On a busy night, we'd probably do 140 to 150 pizzas. And on a slow night, probably 90 pizzas. We had a huge carryout. A third of our business was carryout.

Frank & Helen's Pizza

Bob and Betty Oddy continued to serve Frank & Helen's famous Broasted chicken.

Broasted chicken, that was not a money maker for the restaurant. But it was a calling card for the restaurant.

The Broasters were specially made for Broasted chicken. We used canola oil. Canola oil is just a better oil to use for cooking and healthwise.

The Broasters cook a different way than regular fried chicken. Regular fried chicken cooks from the outside in. So there's a lot of oil and stuff that goes through the skin into your meat. A lot of people think it's just moisture from the chicken, but a lot of it is oil.

The Broasters, they cook from the inside out — pressure cook from the inside out. So it keeps the oil from soaking into the chicken. And so when you take the chicken out of the canola oil, all that's inside that chicken is water that is keeping it moist. That's why Broasted chicken is more healthy for you.

It only took a couple of minutes to cook the chicken because the Broasters cook it real fast. The Broasters are really expensive. We had to buy two new broasters back in the '90s. We paid like $6,000, if not $7,000 for Broasters.

Overall, Broasted chicken is an expensive process, a labor-intensive process. But we sold that chicken; I think it was $7.95 for a chicken dinner. And the chicken dinner came with vegetables, mashed potatoes, and a salad and bread.

Frank & Helen's Broasted Chicken

The recipe for Helen's creamy garlic salad dressing was still a secret. But Bob Oddy finally let the cat out of the bag.

People thought that we had a real secret recipe to the salad. But it's really simple. It was Bernice mayonnaise. Heavy mayonnaise. And then milk and garlic powder. That was the only three items.

But the secret to the salad dressing was the Bernice mayonnaise. People went out and they bought all types of mayonnaise and garlic and milk to try to copy it and so on and so on. And it never, never tasted the same. So they wanted to know what it was. We would never tell anybody. But the Bernice mayo was the secret to our dressing.

Helen's Creamy Garlic Salad Dressing

Frank & Helen's continued to appeal to customers of all ages.

It was a family restaurant. And that family would come in with two generations, three generations of family, with their kids and stuff like that, especially on Mother's Day or Father's Day. On the Jewish holidays, we got big groups of Jewish families in there.

I'm telling you, on a Friday, Saturday and Sunday night, you had to wait from at least an hour to two hours to come in the restaurant. We never advertised. We just used word of mouth and concentrated on service, food quality, quantity of food and atmosphere.

In 1997, the Oddys sold their restaurant and moved to Florida to take care of Bob's mom and dad.

Bob & Betty Oddy, New Braunfels, Texas, 2024

Scott and Mary DePolito bought Frank & Helen's from the Oddys.

I was a police officer there in University City, and Frank & Helen's was a restaurant that I used to frequent, me and a lot of the other guys, when we were on the afternoon watch. This is the late '80s, middle '90s. There really weren't a whole lot of restaurants, like a sit down restaurant, you could go into and eat in U City at the time, other than fast food stuff, and nobody really wanted that. So that's how we all kind of gravitated towards Frank & Helen's.

I don't really remember how it all came about. I think I was just in there eating dinner, and I think they made it known that they were kind of done, and they wanted to move on and do something else, and the restaurant was going to be for sale. I probably went home and said something to Mary, and one thing led to another, and next thing you know, we were buying a restaurant.

The DePolitos didn't make any changes to Frank & Helen's pizza or Broasted chicken.

We knew enough not to screw with those two things because that was what everybody was coming to the restaurant for. The only real change we made is we added a pizza.

We never had a white sauce in the restaurant. So we developed an Alfredo sauce and added a fettuccine Alfredo and a pasta con broccoli to the menu. Then we thought, why not put the white sauce on a pizza? And we made a chicken Alfredo pizza with it.


Circa 2000 Frank & Helen's Menu (click image to enlarge)

Helen's creamy garlic salad dressing recipe was shared with the DePolitos, but they ended up having trouble getting the main ingredient.

There was a particular brand of salad base that we used. The supplier we were buying it from, that was the only thing we were buying from him. He called us and told us he wasn't carrying it because we were the only people that were buying it, and he had to buy it a pallet at a time.

So I ended up having to call the manufacturer, and the next closest person was in Sikeston. So every couple weeks, I would have to drive down to Sikeston and get a truckload and bring it back to make that dressing.

And at some point, that guy decided to stop buying it. I think the actual manufacturer went out of business. Then we had to scramble and figure out what we were going to substitute that with, because it just wasn't available anymore.

I don't know how many different bases we went through before we finally found one that worked — that we thought the consistency and the flavor were the same.

In 2008, Scott and Mary DePolito sold Frank & Helen's.

We had moved out to Lake St. Louis, so we were quite far away from the restaurant. We always wanted to open a second location, but we never got to the point where we had enough capital. So our other option was to sell the restaurant and then take those proceeds and open something closer to home.

So that's what our plan was when we sold the restaurant, but then we couldn't find a location we could afford or would fit what we wanted to do. Different opportunities came available, so we didn't open another restaurant.

Scott & Mary DePolito, Lake St. Louis, 2020

The DePolitos sold Frank & Helen's to Patrick and Rebecca Horvath.

Patrick Horvath grew up in Richmond Heights. He had a lot of restaurant experience, working at pizzerias, burger places and sandwich shops at the St. Louis Galleria as a teenager. He also had concession experience at the Boathouse in Forest Park for nine summers.

When Patrick got out of college, he decided to go into law enforcement. He went through the police academy and was hired by the University City Police Department in 1995.

Scott DePolito and I worked together at the police department. He was actually my field training officer. We used to come into Frank & Helen's and eat. We would sit and talk to Bob and Betty quite a bit, the owners before him, and got to know the staff real well because we probably ate here just about every day.

So then we found out Bob and Betty were interested in selling, and Scott and I were discussing maybe purchasing the restaurant from them together. Come to find out that Bob and Betty didn't want to sell to two people. I didn't have any real credit or collateral, so Scott and Mary bought it without me.

After a few years at U City, I was getting tired of the environment, and I knew Scott was looking for help. So I approached him and said, have you ever thought about hiring a manager? We agreed that we would open for lunch for the first time ever for Frank & Helen's history, and I would be hired as their manager.

So that was my position with them until he decided to sell it to me in 2008. It was September of 2008.

When Patrick and Rebecca took over, they made changes to the menu and they modernized the restaurant.

We changed up the menu quite a bit. Some things we went back and did the original way. Other things we got rid of, like canned corn and canned green beans and frozen vegetables. Things like that we brought in more fresh.

We kept the traditional recipes from Frank & Helen's, like the pizza and the chicken and other dishes, like lasagna. But I was trying new things on top of that.

We were running weekly and monthly specials, and our food rep offered this recipe — chicken spiedini. We threw it on the special menu for like a month. When I tried to take it off, people went nuts. They're like, no man, this has to be on the menu. We probably sell more spiedini than any other — it's the third item. It's Broasted chicken, pizza, spiedini.

Frank & Helen's Chicken Spiedini

2024 Frank & Helen's Menu
(click image to enlarge)

As far as aesthetics, we didn't want to change it so much that it made it look too modern, but there were improvements that always needed to be had, and we started doing those things as well.

So we did modernize a lot of things like, for instance, I put a TV in for the first time for people to watch sports, or American Idol was the big thing at the time.

The Internet, touch screen systems, POS systems, — I mean, it was just kind of modernizing things. I tried to make it a little more professional in the way we did things, like creating an employee manual for the first time.

The god-awful carpeting that was in the dining room. We got rid of that and got new flooring down. It was a big investment, but so much better.

Frank & Helen's Dining Room, 2024

Longtime employee Rose Hepler is emblematic of the employees who worked at Frank & Helen's.

I have worked here for 28 years. I started here as a "family member" who just got paid cash under the table before I was even 14. And then I was official at 14. And I've worked here ever since.

My mom worked here. She started working here sometime in the late 60s, early '70s — single mom, three boys. She worked here for about 25 years. She met my dad here. My dad was a U City policeman and they were always here in the restaurant — before, during their shift, after their shift. She met him when he was a brand new policeman in training and they ended up married.

Then I came along and she would bring me to work with her in a pumpkin seat. I stayed in the pumpkin seat until my dad got off work and came to pick me up.

My brothers worked here. Grandma started working here when she was 60. That paid for her Blues season tickets every year. I actually got to work with Grandma my first couple of years here, so that was kind of fun. And now my oldest works here. So there's been four generations of us that have come through.

Rose Hepler

When the DePolitos sold Frank & Helen's to the Horvaths in 2008, they still owned the building.

We had an opportunity to buy the building after we bought the restaurant — that was in 2001 or 2002, I guess. And then whenever we sold the restaurant to Patrick, we leased the building to him. And I told him from the get-go that he was the only person I was ever gonna lease to. I had no interest in leasing to anybody else.

In the spring of 2023, Patrick and Rebecca Horvath decided not to sign another long-term lease with the Depolitos for the space. The Depolitos put the building on the market and it immediately sold.

The Horvaths had an option to meet the selling price, but they declined that option. Their hope was to sell Frank & Helen's, just as Frank Seitz, the Oddys and the DePolitos had done before them.

But the building's new owner had other plans for the space. The Horvaths no longer had a home for their restaurant.

Honestly, I think it was inevitable, to be fair. We were actually on the upswing with our business when COVID hit. Our sales were up every year ever since I took over and bought the place. We were trying to hit a million dollars in sales and we were on target to hit that when COVID pretty much took all the wind out of our sails.

I took out both PPP loans. Luckily, those were forgiven. But I went ahead and borrowed the EIDL loan; it was a disaster loan. That was $150,000.

But it got us through. It got all of our employees paid. We didn't have to skip a rent payment. All our vendors got paid. So we were strong throughout all of it and able to survive. It extended our life for four more years.

But in the spring of '23, when we saw that our lease was coming up, we basically knew that money was about gone. Our profit margins dwindling. Staffing was hard, still is.

A lot of the reason was the building itself. This building is very old, it's very dilapidated. We are grandfathered in with a lot of things that are coming due in a situation where you renew the lease, such as collapsed sewer lines, put in a grease trap, fix all these other things, were tens of thousands of dollars on top of purchasing the building.

It just got to a point where it wasn't sustainable, let alone we're fighting staffing, cost of goods, everything's going up in price, profit margins shrinking. And the building.

I said, I think we're done. We're ready to sell and find the next people to take over Frank & Helen's. We've been doing this 22 years. We were starting the process to find who was going to take over Frank & Helen's next. Because we didn't want to be the ones. We don't want to be the ones to be the end of the legacy.

But it was going to be hard to find a buyer with the situation we were in at this location. So we looked earnestly for another spot forever. We found lots of spots. It's just it was way too much money. Lots of people wanted us, but the rent that we looked at, the cheapest, it's probably about four times what we pay.

We were hoping to find someone that would be willing to, you know, take the ball and run with it. But circumstances being what they are, it just didn't work out that way. So, here we are.

Patrick & Rebecca Horvath with Rose Hepler (L)
Frank & Helen's, Dec 3, 2024

After almost 70 years in business, Frank & Helen's closed their doors for the last time after service on Sunday, December 8, 2024. Three nights earlier, Helen's daughter, Sharon Wentzelman Robberson, came from her home in Chattanooga, Tennessee with her extended family for one last meal of pizza, Broasted chicken and her mother's creamy garlic salad dressing.

Sharon Wentzelman Robberson & Family
Frank & Helen's, Dec 5, 2024

You can hear more about Frank & Helen's in the Lost Tables Podcast Series.