St. Louis food publication Sauce Magazine has laid off several staff members, and the future of its print issue is in doubt.
Earlier this week, owner Big Lou Holdings let go of Sauce’s interim editor in chief and digital creative director. The magazine will be run by one editorial staff member — the digital editor — along with a part-time designer and two staffers in sales and events.
Big Lou Holdings owner and CEO Chris Keating said the move was a business decision to focus on Sauce’s events, which include Food Truck Friday and Harvest Festival. He said potential advertising in Sauce’s pages and online is limited.
“There's not a tremendous amount of other revenue sources inside the Sauce publication, outside of food, that we can really sell into,” he said. “...This really was just a financial decision in terms of, where do we put all of our resources as much as we possibly can for Sauce, and events seems to be the right place.”
Big Lou Holdings purchased Sauce in December 2023 from founder Allyson Mace. The magazine had cut its print issue in March that year. Keating brought back the print issue.
Keating said he is committed to printing Sauce’s next two issues and will reevaluate the future of the physical magazine at that point. But he said the layoffs were not prompted by the print issue.
“[I] certainly don’t want to make it sound, or whatever, that we’re killing it or something. But the last three or four issues have been very strong for us,” he said. “I have an eye on the future, from the standpoint that you know you have a seasonal slowdown in December, January, February.”
Keating said the magazine will be getting a new website this fall and will look to lean on freelance writers.
The most recent set of layoffs come after Sauce let go two staff members this summer and longtime Executive Editor Meera Nagarajan resigned in July.
“I think it’s sad to lose another local publication that is covering St. Louis,” Nagarajan said. “Sauce covered St. Louis through the lens of food and dining and restaurants, and I think to lose a voice like that is bad for the culture of our city, and I’m really going to miss it.”
Nagarajan, who began at Sauce in 2008, said she believes that finances at Sauce were bad leading up to its sale to Keating.
“What I know for sure is that Sauce went out of print in March of 2023, and I can only assume that it was due to financial distress,” she said. “People don't go out of print because they're rolling in money.”
In May, Keating’s Big Lou Holdings sold St. Louis alt weekly newspaper the Riverfront Times to an undisclosed buyer, and the new owners did not retain any of the staff. Keating had been part of the owner group of the paper since 2015 and purchased it from his former partners in 2023.
Jessica Rogen is a former employee of Big Lou Holdings and the Riverfront Times. Sauce journalists have been regular guests on St. Louis on the Air on St. Louis Public Radio.
Correction: A previous version of this story misspelled Meera Nagarajan's surname.
