The neighborhood restaurant in the former service station at Macklind and Bischoff avenues has a new identity. In April 2024, Pit Stop was rebranded as Collina Eatery. Collina is Italian for “hill.”
The restaurant is owned by chef Carlos Hernandez, who previously cooked at Modesto and Eleven Eleven Mississippi, and Joe Smugala. Karen Caputo is general manager of the pair’s restaurants. Hernandez told St. Louis Magazine that the Pit Stop name, a nod to the building’s gas-station past, led some guests to expect a burger joint or barbecue restaurant rather than the Italian-leaning menu.
A building with several lives
The brick building still shows its history, with a working garage door and antique gas pumps on a patio. According to Feast, Smugala took over the site in 2017 for GastroPit, a St. Louis-style barbecue concept. He opened the steakhouse Carnivore in 2018, and Feast says he then brought Hernandez on as a partner. St. Louis Magazine notes that Carnivore is where the two first worked together. The pair rebranded GastroPit as Pit Stop in 2020. Collina is the next chapter.
Inside, the update brought mid-century-style chairs, a shorter bar and a wine wall with a white-tiled backdrop and the Collina logo. Feast put the space at about 1,200 square feet, with roughly 50 seats indoors and more than 50 on the patio.
What’s on the menu
Some Pit Stop favorites carried over, including pressure-fried chicken and a carrot cake filled with caramel cheesecake. New dishes include lobster risotto arancini with saffron aioli, veal dumplings with oyster mushrooms, bucatini al pomodoro, a chicken cordon bleu with cheddar gnocchi and pan-seared snapper over Mediterranean couscous. Feast reported a weekly Wednesday pasta special.
The bar mixes signature cocktails, among them an Italian margarita and a Sicilian old-fashioned.
Hours and location
Collina Eatery is at 2130 Macklind Ave. Feast listed dinner hours Wednesday through Sunday, opening at 5 p.m. most nights and 4 p.m. on Sundays. The owners also run El Milagro Azteca nearby and are preparing Marconi Mercato, a market and restaurant on Marconi Avenue.
For more on the neighborhood’s past, see our History of The Hill timeline.
Sources: St. Louis Magazine, Feast Magazine.
