As Restaurants Remain Shuttered, American Cities Fear the Future

The change in Botanical Heights started with a single restaurant. Before Olio, a Mediterranean-influenced spot fashioned from a boarded-up old gas station, opened in 2012, its St. Louis neighborhood was known mostly as a place to buy illegal drugs. Nearly three-quarters of the lots on some streets were abandoned or demolished, said Brent Crittenden, the chief executive of UIC, the design and redevelopment firm that built Olio and several other restaurants in the neighborhood. By his count, one block was down to fewer than 10 residents.