Lost Tables: Pond Inn

Pond Inn

Antonio "Tony" Haenni was born to Lee and Gladys Haenni on June 5, 1937 in Union, Missouri. Lee Haenni owned an automobile dealership in Union. Gladys Haenni operated The Last Round-Up Cafe. Both were active in civic affairs and dabbled in local politics.

By 1944, the Haenni family had moved to Pacific. By 1951 they lived in Ballwin, where Lee and Gladys Haenni operated the Ballwin Antique Shop at 219 Manchester Road.

Tony Haenni attended eighth grade and his first year of high school in Pacific, and graduated from Eureka High School in 1954. He received a bachelor's degree in 1957 and a master's degree in political science in 1959 from Washington University.

In 1961, construction on Manchester Road forced Lee and Gladys Haenni to vacate Ballwin. They moved their home and antique shop to Pond, renaming their business Haenni Antiques.

Haenni Antiques, 17301 Manchester Road, Pond, Missouri

The village of Pond sprung up along Manchester Road in 1835 as a stagecoach stop between St. Louis and Jefferson City. In 1995, Pond was incorporated into the city of Wildwood, along with Grover, Fox Creek and Hollow.

Pond had no formal boundaries; anyone whose mail was delivered to the Pond post office was a resident of Pond. But its crossroads could be found on Manchester Road, where Pond Road meets Christy Avenue.

Haenni Antiques was located at the northwest corner of this intersection, at Manchester and Pond roads. The structure had been built by John Kern in 1925 as a service station.

Shortly after Lee and Gladys Haenni moved to Pond, Tony Haenni joined his parents in the antique business. In May of 1963, while hunting for antiques in Paris, Tony Haenni met Eliane de Girodin-Pralong.

I was just out of the U.S. Army, trying to organize an antiques importing business when a friend needed transportation for his date. The exchange for me was a blind date with Eliane.
Eliane was working at the Alliance Francaise, planning to be transferred to the office in San Francisco some months later. From an aristocratic family, she lived in an elaborate sixth-floor apartment just inside the garden areas of Montparnasse.
I was quite enamored early on, We were married that October in Paris at Notre Dame de Champs in Montparnasse. Eliane and I traveled back to the States first class on the ocean liner The France, a remarkable experience.

In March of 1966, Lee Haenni died of heart disease at the age of 72. Tony Haenni continued to operate his father's antique business, along with his mother and sister.

Our antiques importing business really took off. We frequented France, living there for months at a time. I was looking for additional warehouse space in Pond when the Inn became available.

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In 1903, Henry Wilming purchased land at the southeast corner of Manchester Road and Christy Avenue. By 1908, Wilming was running a saloon on the property. Charles Kesselring took over ownership in 1911. His brother Philip was granted a saloon license in 1912.

The saloon became known as the Wayside Inn. It was run by William Kesselring, another brother, and his wife Mary. The family lived upstairs. There was also a dance hall and picnic grove on the property.

Wayside Inn, Manchester Road and Christy Avenue. 1936

William and Mary Kesselring, Wayside Inn

On April 30, 1967, the Wayside Inn was listed for sale in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

Historic Wayside Inn ― Within 42 miles St. Louis. Ideal for restaurant, museum or antique shop with living quarters on second floor! 3 acres, well, 700-ft. frontage on state highway. Typical 2-story stage coach building with 80-ft. porch on first and second floor, 7 rooms in all, does need restoring, rustic rail fencing. Rare find indeed for the buyer who wants to use for home or business . . . just imagine ONLY $9850, $2000 down. Immediate possession.

In 1974, John and Christy Koines opened a restaurant in the Wayside Inn space. The restaurant received good reviews, but closed in 1977.

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Tony Haenni acquired the Wayside Inn property in 1978. Catercorner from his antique shop, he used the old dance hall to store his antiques. He planned to raze the vacant restaurant, but Eliane persuaded him otherwise. They shared an interest in French cuisine and decided to remodel the space and open a French country inn. They called their new restaurant the Pond Inn.

The Pond Inn, 17250 Manchester Road

The Pond Inn opened in July of 1979. The restaurant offered a multicourse dinner on Thursday, Friday and Saturday evenings. The cost was twenty-five dollars per person, exclusive of drinks and gratuity.

The remodeled restaurant featured an antique-studded bar and lounge area on the first floor, decorated with pieces from Haenni's collection. The main dining room was upstairs.

Eliane Haenni, who had learned to cook from the Lyonnaise live-in chefs who worked for her family in France, stepped in as chef when her husband's initial arrangements fell through.

We were trying to bring a friend over from France to be our chef, but working through immigration was impossible. Then Eliane took over the kitchen and loved it, so she didn't want to let go.

Eliane and Tony Haenni, Pond Inn
St. Louis Magazine, Sept 1979

An evening at the Pond Inn started with an amuses gueules and a cocktail or aperitif in the first floor lounge. The dinner menu was perused and selections made before ascending the stairs to the second floor dining room.

There were six appetizers to choose from, including coquilles St. Jacques, a poached egg in aspic with pimiento and ham, and a cold "cauliflower velvet" soup. There were four entrees ― a filet mignon with a choice of three sauces, lamb chops braised in mustard, coq au vin and a specialty of the house which changed weekly.

Salad was served tableside after the entree from a large glass bowl, along with a wedge of brie.

Desserts were offered from a cart, highlighted by cheesecake with fresh strawberries, cold poached pear in rum jelly and a coffee-cream éclair.



1983 Pond Inn Menu (click image to enlarge)

The Pond Inn received two reviews in September of 1979 ― one from John Quinn, restaurant critic for St. Louis Magazine, and the other from Joe Pollack, restaurant critic for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

Quinn gushed about his dinner.

At Pond Inn recently I had one of the best meals I've ever had in St. Louis. All the dishes were decidedly robust and full of strong complementary flavors in the best tradition of French country cooking.
Perhaps there are a half-dozen places in St. Louis that I would especially like to have nobody know about except for myself and just enough people to keep the place going. The Pond Inn is one of them ― a restaurant that has established itself as one of our city's finest on the day it opened its door.

Pollack titled his review "The Inn Is In Too Deep."

In words of one syllable, the Pond Inn is in over its head.
The problems over two visits were with inconsistency of preparation, with some items excellent and others nearly inedible, and, more important, with an overuse of pepper that destroyed what are supposed to be the delicate nuances of flavor in French cooking.
There is obvious talent, but there seems to be too much interference with the basics, and the result of the meddling is an unsatisfactory experience.

Tony and Eliane Haenni, Pond Inn
St. Louis Magazine Great Recipes, 1981

By 1988, the Pond Inn was serving dinner Wednesday through Sunday. There were now two small dining rooms downstairs and a larger one upstairs. The menu featured a la carte selections, with entrees ranging from $15.50 to $19.50, appetizers and desserts from $4 to $9.

Menu items included sautéed shrimp flamed in brandy; roast duck in a green peppercorn sauce; stuffed sliced veal in a light cream sauce; Cornish hen in a plum sauce; lamb kidneys sautéed with bacon, cream and port; snails with ham, mushrooms, tomatoes and garlic in a Pernod sauce; salade nicoise and the Inn's signature dish, coquilles St. Jacques – scallops and mushrooms in a wine and cream sauce.

Tony Haenni's sister made some of the Inn's desserts. The Haennis' daughter, Nadeige, who was married to the maitre d' and sommelier, helped out on the service side. Their other daughter, Veronique, assisted her mother in the kitchen.

Basically, I learned to cook here, watching my mother. It is incredible how much you learn from being on the job. Mother doesn't use recipes; her dishes are all variations on the classics. My philosophy – our philosophy – has always been simple food done well. Presentation is important, of course, but you have to begin with fresh, quality ingredients.
We have built a reputation on consistency: Many of the menu items we opened with are still popular today – pate, filet mignon with three sauces, lamb chops with dijon sauce or herb butter, and Cornish hen. One of my favorite ingredients is garlic. You'll find it in most of my dishes.
I like the smallness of our place. Mother and I cook. We keep Dad out of the kitchen! I can't imagine doing it without her. She loves to create the soups, heartier dishes, and I pretty much execute them. My love is pastry; that is my rush.

Veronique Haenni left the Pond Inn for marriage in August of 1995, with her mother resuming her full-time post in the kitchen.


Veronique Haenni St. Louis Post-Dispatch, May 15, 1991	Eliane Haenni St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Apr 10, 1991

Tony Haenni died on October 27, 2000 at the age of 63. The Pond Inn died with him.

In his January 23, 2002 Riverfront Times review of a restaurant that opened in the space a year later, Joe Bonwich gave an inadvertent obituary.

The Pond Inn was an unofficial club, and you were decidedly either in or out: in if you believed that the former owner, the late Anthony Haenni, was a culinary genius (and, in fact, some did); out if you questioned even a spice or a grain of salt or committed the ultimate sin of showing up more than a minute late for your appointed time.
But as all things must pass, so did that owner, and the location stood fallow for about a year after Haenni's death.

Tony and Eliane Haenni, Pond Inn
St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Mar 15, 1995

A new Pond Inn was opened in the space in October of 2001 by Roy Wurst and Winston Alvarez. Wurst had managed Plager's in the early '70s. Alvarez had managed Malmaison at Saint Albans, the Legends Country Club, the University Club and the Whittemore House at Washington University.

The new restaurant described its cuisine as "European" and subtitled itself a "maison de vin" with a diverse wine list. While reviews were decent, by 2004, Roux Cajun Restaurant had taken over the space. It was also short-lived.


2001 Pond Inn Menu (click image to enlarge)

The building at 17250 Manchester Road sat empty until 2012, when it was purchased by Bethany Mehard, who began renovation and planned to open another Pond Inn. But her plans were derailed by waste management and water runoff issues.

17250 Manchester Road, 2013

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The intersection on Manchester Road, where Pond Road meets Christy Avenue, looks much the same today as it did nearly one hundred years ago. Traffic is sparse, with most vehicles bypassing the old road in favor of the newer Highway 100 to the north.

The Kern Service Station building, which became Haenni Antiques, still stands on the northwest corner of Manchester and Pond roads, now occupied by a power washing business. And the white frame building on the southeast corner of Manchester Road and Christy Avenue, which housed the Wayside Inn, and then the Pond Inn, is for sale – longing for scallops and mushrooms in a wine and cream sauce.

Manchester Road at Pond Road and Christy Avenue, 2022