Reine Keis is used to surprising people with her vegan comfort food at SweetArt Bakeshop & Cafe.
Take, for example, parents who need cakes for kids with dietary restrictions.
“They're thinking it's going to taste like, you know, three bricks with frosting,” Keis said. Then they take a bite. “‘Are you sure this is vegan?’ I love that. Yes, I'm 100,000% sure that it's vegan.”
Keis is set to surprise once again. After running SweetArt for 16 years from a small storefront in St. Louis’ Shaw neighborhood, she’s making big changes. On Friday, Keis opened a stall in the Food Hall at City Foundry and will be relocating her main business to a bigger space in the Coronado building across from St. Louis University’s campus around April.
“It’s very easy to stay where you are and crank it out but, to be honest, if I don’t grow right now, I will close,” Keis said. “Sometimes your hand is forced to get out of your comfort zone and try, and I think I’ll do really well.”
The way the pandemic changed dining culture in St. Louis meant that Keis either had to shrink or grow so the scale of her business would make sense, she said. The thought of only being open a few days a week with fewer employees didn’t sound good.
Plus, the Coronado space seems like the right move, she said. It has a turnkey kitchen and is situated near SLU, Grand Center attractions and various apartment buildings and businesses. Right now, the neighborhood lacks a spot to pick up coffee or tea early in the morning — a need Keis plans to fill.
Then there’s her City Foundry expansion, which she’s dubbed SweetArt Too — not two — “for awesome.”
Keis hadn’t wanted a second location for SweetArt when representatives from the Foundry approached her ahead of its opening in 2021. But when she'd visit, she'd notice the Food Hall didn’t have many vegan options. That helped change her mind when they approached her again last summer. She said yes this time.
And maybe SweetArt Too was destined.
“I'd always been told by strangers and people who are seers and, you know, mystics,” Keis said. “They would come, just come up to me and say, ‘You're supposed to have multiple locations of the thing that you do,’ and they don't know me. And I was like, ‘Who are these crazies? Why do I attract the crazies?’ But I believed them.”
The result of that belief has mostly taken shape on the eastern side of the Food Hall in a stall decorated with art by her two children, both artists like Keis’ ex-husband, Cbabi Bayoc.
Bayoc’s artwork hung on the walls at the original location when it first opened. That their children have art on her future businesses’ walls now is meaningful to Keis.
“It's just such a beautiful thing,” she said.
SweetArt Too’s menu will feature mini versions of favorites from the old shop, such as the burgers, nachos, loaded fries and salads. Keis is pricing her food around $7, with various combo deals, and she is hoping to draw customers curious about eating plant based.
“Some people just still think vegan food is horrendous and nasty, even in 2025, so I wanted to have something that was smaller and approachable,” she said.
Since SweetArt opened in 2008, Keis has seen St. Louisans become more accepting of her food as vegan fare has moved into the mainstream.
“There is this belief that plant-based food is something that white people do, but it's actually huge among Black people, in the Black community. A lot of my customers are Black, and they are vegan, or they're mostly vegan, flexitarian,” she said. “... It wasn't a hurdle that I had to jump over. It’s a lifestyle that crosses cultures, and St. Louis and its diversity has many cultures that resonate toward the plant-based diet.”
Opening the stall has taken much longer than Keis anticipated — she thought she’d be serving customers by September but is still waiting on two inspections.
But the ups and downs have helped her appreciate what she’s doing with her life.
“There's something about food and creating food and exchanging food and smiling at folks and interacting that is not like any other industry,” Keis said. “So I can't say it's been fun. It has been eye-opening. And, really, the eye-opening part is that I'm committed to the industry. This is what I do, and I think I like it.”
