Candicci’s: A 40-Year St. Louis Italian Favorite, Reinvented
Revised July 23, 2026
Is Candicci’s still open, and what does it serve now?
Yes, but in a new form. The full-service Candicci’s restaurant closed in 2024 and reopened as Candicci’s Catering & Express at 14870 Clayton Road on the Chesterfield/Ballwin border, (636) 220-8989. It focuses on takeout, delivery, and catering — St. Louis-style thin-crust pizza, toasted ravioli, pastas, Italian-American entrees, family specials, and catering trays — rather than sit-down dining.
Keep reading ↓If you’ve been ordering from Candicci’s for years — a family pizza night, a toasted-ravioli fix, a catered office lunch — here’s the news that matters: the beloved St. Louis Italian institution is still very much alive, but it has changed shape. This is an honest, up-to-date look at what Candicci’s is now, so you know exactly what to expect before you call.
The short version: after more than 40 years as a full-service restaurant, Candicci’s closed its longtime Ballwin dining room in 2024 and reopened as Candicci’s Catering & Express — a takeout-and-catering operation built around the pizzas, pastas, and family favorites that made its name. If you’re picturing the old white-tablecloth veal-and-seafood dining room with its patio and sit-down service, gently update that picture; the format is different now, but the pizzas, pastas, and toasted ravioli you love are still here, just served a new way.
What Candicci’s is today
Candicci’s Catering & Express operates from 14870 Clayton Road, on the Chesterfield/Ballwin border in west St. Louis County (ZIP 63017), phone (636) 220-8989. It moved here in 2024 into the former Chirco’s Pizza space at Clayton and Baxter — not in Old Town Chesterfield or the Valley, but along the Clayton Road corridor between the two communities.
The concept shifted from sit-down dining to takeout, delivery, and catering. Owner Bob Candice has been candid in local coverage about why: staff shortages, rising lease costs, and food-cost pressure made the full-service model untenable, so the family reinvented the business around what it does best rather than closing the doors for good. It’s a genuinely admirable pivot — keeping a 40-year name alive by changing the format instead of giving up, and a reminder that the restaurants worth rooting for are often the ones that find a way to keep going when the easy choice would be to walk away.
The food: St. Louis Italian, built for takeout
The menu centers on the crowd-pleasers that travel well:
St. Louis-style thin-crust pizza — the local classic, cut into squares — alongside a New York hand-tossed option for a different mood.
Toasted ravioli — the quintessential St. Louis appetizer, and a Candicci’s staple.
Pastas and Italian-American entrees — think pasta con broccoli, pasta primavera, spaghetti and meatballs, lasagna, eggplant Parmesan, and chicken Marsala.
Starters and salads — spinach-artichoke dip, mozzarella sticks, house salad.
Family specials and a kids’ menu — built to feed a household without a big-night-out bill.
Catering trays — the same favorites scaled up for a crowd, from pastas to pizzas to sliced-meat spreads.
It’s an Italian-American menu in the truest, most comforting sense — not chasing trends, just doing the classics well. That’s exactly what you want from a takeout order on a busy night: food you already know you like, made by a kitchen that has been making it for decades.
A quick honesty note for longtime fans: the express menu focuses on pizzas, pastas, and select items, so some of the old full-service specialties — the veal and seafood entrees the sit-down restaurant was known for — may not be available in the new format. If you have a specific dish in mind, the safest move is a quick call to confirm it’s on the current menu before you order.
Looking for more St. Louis Italian? Our guide to the best Italian food in St. Louis covers the metro’s classics, from The Hill to the suburbs — real places, real reviews.
Run a restaurant or catering business? When plans change — a new location, a new model — a current, accurate directory profile makes sure customers find the real you, not an outdated listing. It’s how loyal regulars follow you when you move.
A quick word on St. Louis-style pizza
If you’re new to the metro, Candicci’s pizza is a good introduction to a genuinely local style that divides visitors and delights natives. St. Louis-style thin-crust is cracker-thin, unleavened, and cut into squares (“tavern cut”) rather than wedges — a format built for sharing a corner while you talk. Order it once and you understand the city’s fierce, slightly baffling-to-outsiders pizza loyalty a little better. Candicci’s serving both the local thin-crust and a New York hand-tossed means you can settle a house debate with a single order, which is exactly the kind of practical flexibility a family takeout spot needs.
Pair a pizza with an order of toasted ravioli — another St. Louis original, breaded and fried, meant for dunking in marinara — and you’ve basically ordered the city on a plate. These aren’t trendy dishes; they’re comfort food with local roots, and a 40-year Italian kitchen makes them the way they’re supposed to taste. That’s the quiet argument for ordering from a place like this instead of a national chain: the recipes have decades behind them, and it shows in the details a corporate kitchen tends to sand off. You’re not just buying dinner; you’re buying dinner from people who have been perfecting it since before a lot of their customers were born.
Catering is now the heart of it
The “Catering” in the name isn’t an afterthought — it’s central to what Candicci’s does now, and arguably where a four-decade Italian kitchen is at its strongest. For office lunches, graduations, showers, and family gatherings, catering trays of the pastas, pizzas, salads, and Italian-American mains that generations of St. Louisans grew up on are exactly the kind of familiar, crowd-pleasing spread that makes an event easy. Feeding a group of ten or more is squarely in their wheelhouse.
There’s a real advantage to catering from a place with this much history: the recipes are dialed in, the operation knows how to cook at volume, and the food is the comforting, everyone-likes-it Italian-American style that rarely disappoints a mixed crowd. If you’re planning something and want to take the food off your worry list, it’s a natural call — and supporting a longtime local family in its new chapter is a nice bonus. For a lot of St. Louis families, Candicci’s was the caterer for graduations and holidays long before the format changed, and that institutional knowledge doesn’t evaporate just because the dining room did.
A 40-plus-year St. Louis story
Candicci’s is a genuine local institution. Founded by the Candice family more than 40 years ago, it grew from a small early space into a well-known west-county Italian restaurant over the decades, building the kind of multi-generational following where parents who ate there as kids now bring their own. That loyalty is exactly why the 2024 reinvention is a story worth telling rather than a quiet closure: the family chose to adapt and keep feeding its community rather than let four decades end. Reviews across the years cluster in the solid range — roughly four stars on Google across hundreds of reviews — the kind of steady record a place earns by showing up for a community year after year.
It’s also a small lesson in how the restaurant business really works right now. Rising costs and staffing challenges have reshaped independent dining everywhere, and the operators who survive are often the ones willing to change the model without abandoning what made them special. Candicci’s did exactly that, and the payoff for customers is that the pizza and toasted rav they’ve loved for years are still a phone call away. In a metro that takes its Italian food personally — where The Hill is practically a landmark and everyone has a favorite red-sauce place — a 40-year name surviving into a new chapter is genuinely good news, not a footnote.
Perfect for the no-cook family night
There’s a specific niche the new Candicci’s fills beautifully: the weeknight when nobody wants to cook, but everyone’s tired of the same three delivery apps. A thin-crust pizza, a family pasta, a shared toasted-rav appetizer, and a house salad feeds a household comfortably and travels the short drive across west county without falling apart. It’s the kind of order that turns an ordinary Tuesday into something that feels a little like a treat, without the cost or fuss of going out.
The family-special and kids’-menu options make it especially easy on a budget and easy with picky eaters — Italian-American comfort food is about as universally accepted as dinner gets. For parents juggling homework and bedtime, “I’ll grab Candicci’s” is a genuinely good answer, and one that supports a longtime local family instead of a national chain. That combination — easy, affordable, and local — is the sweet spot the express format is built for.
Before you go: what to know
Candicci’s Catering & Express is at 14870 Clayton Road (Chesterfield/Ballwin, 63017), reachable at (636) 220-8989. A few things to keep in mind:
It’s takeout, delivery, and catering — not a sit-down dining room. Plan to pick up, have it delivered, or book catering.
Call ahead for hours. As with any restaurant that has recently changed format, days and hours can vary — a quick call confirms them, plus current menu items and catering options, in one shot.
Ignore the old listings. Some review sites still show the closed Holloway Road restaurant as if it’s open — the current operation is the Clayton Road express and catering location.
Book catering ahead. For events, give them lead time so they can prep your order and confirm the menu — the earlier you call, the smoother it goes.
If your idea of a good weeknight is St. Louis-style thin-crust and a side of toasted ravioli without cooking a thing, Candicci’s is still your spot — and if you’re feeding a crowd, it may be an even better one now than before.
Why the reinvention is worth rooting for
It’s easy to read “beloved restaurant closes” as a sad story, and plenty of St. Louis favorites have simply gone dark in the last few years. What makes Candicci’s different is that the family didn’t quit — they looked hard at what wasn’t working, kept the parts that were, and rebuilt around them. That’s not a failure; it’s a small act of stubborn optimism, and it’s the reason the toasted ravioli you grew up on is still being made.
For customers, the practical upshot is simple: a 40-year Italian kitchen is still cooking, now in a format that fits how a lot of us actually eat — picking up a family dinner, ordering delivery, booking catering for a crowd. Choosing it over a national chain keeps a local family’s story going, and gets you better, more characterful food in the bargain. When a longtime independent finds a way to survive a brutal stretch for restaurants, showing up is the whole point — and in this case, showing up tastes like square-cut thin-crust and marinara.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Candicci’s still open?
Yes, but in a new form. The full-service Candicci’s restaurant on Holloway Road in Ballwin closed in 2024, and the business reopened as Candicci’s Catering & Express at 14870 Clayton Road on the Chesterfield/Ballwin border, (636) 220-8989. It now focuses on takeout, delivery, and catering rather than sit-down dining.
What’s on the Candicci’s menu now?
St. Louis-style thin-crust and New York hand-tossed pizza, toasted ravioli, pastas like pasta con broccoli and lasagna, Italian-American entrees such as eggplant Parmesan and chicken Marsala, salads, appetizers, family specials, and a kids’ menu, plus catering trays. Some old full-service specialties (like veal and seafood entrees) may not be on the express menu — call to confirm a specific dish.
Does Candicci’s do catering?
Yes — catering is central to the current business, which operates as Candicci’s Catering & Express. It caters office lunches, family gatherings, and events, typically for groups of ten or more, with the pizzas, pastas, salads, and Italian-American favorites it has served for over 40 years. Call (636) 220-8989 to plan an order.
Where is Candicci’s located?
At 14870 Clayton Road, on the Chesterfield/Ballwin border in west St. Louis County (ZIP 63017), in the former Chirco’s Pizza space near Clayton and Baxter. Note this is a different, newer location than the longtime Holloway Road restaurant, which closed in 2024 — some outdated listings still show the old address.
Written by a dedicated team of St. Louis locals who live, work, and play right here in the St. Louis metro. Founder Lane Forman and team are committed to building the region’s most trusted directory by verifying listings and connecting local businesses with loyal customers across Missouri and Illinois.