CLAYTON, MO – October 5, 2026 (STL.News) A locally owned St. Louis-area sweets shop that began with a small storefront in Webster Groves just over two years ago has expanded again, opening its third and most ambitious location in downtown Clayton.
Sylvie Dee’s held its grand opening at 8115 Maryland Avenue in Clayton on Oct. 3, taking over the longtime home of The Posh Nosh. The expansion gives the locally developed concept three locations while establishing the Clayton store as a production center for an expanded pastry program.
The business, co-owned by Rachel and Jay Closson, combines an ice cream shop, old-fashioned soda fountain, candy store, coffee service, and now a larger bakery operation.
The Clayton opening follows rapid expansion for a concept that debuted in Webster Groves in June 2024 and added its second location at City Foundry STL in May 2025.
In a little more than two years, Sylvie Dee’s has grown from a small neighborhood sweets shop into a three-location business with a developing centralized pastry operation and ties to another locally owned Webster Groves business.
The Clayton store represents the company’s biggest step yet.
Clayton becomes third Sylvie Dee’s location
The new shop occupies 8115 Maryland Ave., a familiar downtown Clayton restaurant address that previously housed The Posh Nosh for years.
Converting the space required considerably more than replacing signs and moving in ice cream freezers.
Sauce Magazine reported before the opening that the former Posh Nosh space underwent a substantial renovation, including new plumbing, electrical work, and flooring.
The completed Clayton store is significantly larger than the original Webster Groves location and includes a long patio area.
For comparison, the original Sylvie Dee’s opened in an approximately 800-square-foot space at 8721 Big Bend Blvd. in Webster Groves. That location combined ice cream, candy, and coffee in a compact neighborhood storefront.
The new Clayton shop maintains that original concept while giving the company room to substantially expand what it can produce and sell.
Rachel Closson told St. Louis Magazine that she was surprised downtown Clayton did not already have a dedicated ice cream shop.
“I was shocked there wasn’t an ice cream shop in downtown Clayton,” Closson said. “It was the perfect ‘duh’ opportunity.”
The location also appealed to her because of its neighborhood character, according to Sauce Magazine. Closson said the company hopes to develop the kind of repeat customer base in Clayton that formed around its original Webster Groves shop.
Expansion has happened rapidly
Sylvie Dee’s has moved quickly since opening its first store.
The flagship location opened in the Old Webster area of Webster Groves in June 2024.
Rachel and Jay Closson, longtime Webster Groves residents, saw an opportunity for a walkable neighborhood ice cream shop after Serendipity moved from Webster Groves to the Grove.
The original 800-square-foot shop became more than a place to buy an ice cream cone. It incorporated coffee, nostalgic candy, and an old-fashioned neighborhood sweets-shop atmosphere.
Less than a year later, Sylvie Dee’s opened its second location at City Foundry STL.
The City Foundry location opened in May 2025 in the breezeway near the food hall’s main entrance, occupying the former Century Coffee Co. space. It continued the original shop’s combination of ice cream, coffee, candy, and old-fashioned sodas.
Then came Clayton.
The Oct. 3 grand opening means Sylvie Dee’s has expanded from one location to three in roughly 27 months.
That is a relatively rapid growth trajectory for a locally owned retail food concept, especially because the Clayton project includes not only another storefront but also a significant expansion of the company’s production capabilities.
Clayton adds an in-house pastry operation
The biggest difference between Clayton and the company’s first two locations may be behind the counter.
The Clayton store includes a dedicated pastry facility designed to serve as a production kitchen for Sylvie Dee’s.
Melissa Ragsdale, owner of Ragsy Pastry, has moved her pastry operation into the new facility, according to St. Louis Magazine. The expanded kitchen will produce pastries for the Clayton store and supply baked goods to other Sylvie Dee’s locations.
That represents an important operational change.
Before Clayton, Sylvie Dee’s relied on commissary and wholesale arrangements for baked goods.
“That’s what’s different about this shop,” Closson told Sauce Magazine before the opening. “Now it’s all in-house.”
The pastry operation is expected to produce a variety of items, including croissants, cinnamon rolls, brownies, blondies, cookies, seasonal loaves and savory pastries.
St. Louis Magazine reported that the expanded program will also allow Sylvie Dee’s to offer custom cakes, ice cream cakes, and other specialty desserts.
The arrangement effectively gives the Clayton store two functions.
It is a retail shop serving Clayton customers, but it also becomes part of the production infrastructure supporting the broader Sylvie Dee’s business.
That makes the expansion more consequential than simply opening another ice cream store.
Candy becomes a bigger part of the concept
The Clayton store also substantially expands Sylvie Dee’s candy operation.
Candy has been part of the business since the original Webster Groves location opened, helping create the nostalgic sweets-shop environment that distinguishes the concept from a conventional ice cream store.
At Clayton, that part of the business is much larger.
St. Louis Magazine reported that the store devotes an entire wall to roughly 40 varieties of Swedish candy, along with nostalgic American sweets, premium chocolates, and other imported products.
Sauce Magazine reported approximately 36 varieties of bulk pick-and-mix sweets as the Clayton store prepared to open, in addition to wrapped and international candy. The selection also includes locally produced chocolates from Bijoux and Bissinger’s.
The slight difference between the pre-opening and opening-day candy counts reflects reporting at different stages of the store’s development.
Together, the ice cream, candy, soda fountain and bakery components create a concept broader than the term “ice cream shop” suggests.
That appears to be intentional.
“People assume we’re only an ice cream shop, no matter what we do,” Closson told St. Louis Magazine. “Adding a full pastry component should change that perception and let the public know we’re a whole lot more.”
Ice cream remains at the center
Despite the expanded bakery and candy operation, ice cream remains central to Sylvie Dee’s identity.
The Clayton freezer case opened with 16 ice cream flavors, according to St. Louis Magazine. Customers can order traditional scoops as well as milkshakes, floats, ice cream sandwiches, affogatos, and flights consisting of six tasting scoops.
The menu also includes what Sylvie Dee’s calls “Saturdaes,” its version of sundaes, and ice cream nachos served with waffle-cone chips.
Old-fashioned sodas remain another part of the concept.
The store offers customizable soda-fountain drinks and seasonal flavors. Closson has described the current popularity of “dirty sodas” as a modern version of the traditional soda-fountain business rather than something entirely new.
Those offerings allow Sylvie Dee’s to appeal to customers looking for more than a standard scoop shop while maintaining the nostalgic identity established at the Webster Groves location.
Clayton coffee menu intentionally limited
One unusual aspect of the Clayton opening is what Sylvie Dee’s decided not to expand.
The company offers coffee at its locations, but the Clayton coffee program is intentionally more limited because of neighboring Colombian coffee specialist Zensia.
St. Louis Magazine reported that Sylvie Dee’s continues to offer coffee from local roaster Vapore Coffee, but the Clayton menu has been streamlined to avoid competing with its neighboring coffee-focused business.
Sauce Magazine similarly reported that the store planned to offer drip and pour-over coffee, along with matcha, chai, and seasonal drinks, rather than building a larger coffee operation next door to Zensia.
The decision illustrates a neighborhood-oriented approach to the Clayton location.
Rather than trying to duplicate every nearby offering, Sylvie Dee’s is focusing on what sets it apart: ice cream, candy, pastries, and soda-fountain products.
A family connection behind the Sylvie Dee’s name
The Sylvie Dee’s name itself comes from the Closson family.
“Sylvie” honors Rachel Closson’s late grandmother, Sylvia Permuter, while “Dee” comes from a family name on Jay Closson’s side.
St. Louis Magazine reported that Permuter died in 2024, the same year the original shop opened.
That family connection fits the neighborhood-oriented identity the Clossons have developed around the business.
The original Webster Groves location was designed as much a gathering place as a retail operation, with a small patio and family-friendly elements. The Clayton store carries that approach into a considerably larger setting.
Clossons expand beyond Sylvie Dee’s
The Clayton opening is also part of broader business activity involving the Clossons in Webster Groves.
The family has acquired Maypop, the garden center and coffee shop on Marshall Avenue.
The property has been renamed Maypop & The Marshall House, and St. Louis Magazine reports that Closson has been renovating the interior, adding a kitchen, and expanding the property’s use for classes, dinners, and other events.
Sauce Magazine reported that the new Sylvie Dee’s pastry operation is eventually expected to provide baked goods to Maypop as well.
That creates a connection between what initially appear to be separate businesses.
The Clayton bakery can support the Sylvie Dee’s stores while potentially supplying another business controlled by the same local ownership group.
The arrangement suggests the owners are developing shared production capabilities rather than treating each storefront as an entirely independent operation.
Clayton is the company’s most ambitious expansion
Sylvie Dee’s remains a relatively young company.
Its original shop has been operating for only a little more than two years.
Yet during that period, the business has expanded from a small Webster Groves storefront to City Foundry STL and now downtown Clayton.
The third location represents a more substantial commitment than the second.
The City Foundry expansion placed Sylvie Dee’s inside an established food hall and entertainment destination.
Clayton required significant renovation of a standalone commercial space and the development of an in-house pastry operation to support multiple locations.
The result gives Sylvie Dee’s another customer-facing store while also increasing the infrastructure behind the business.
That combination is what makes the Clayton opening noteworthy from a local-business perspective.
A locally owned business enters its next phase
St. Louis has no shortage of new restaurant and dessert-shop openings.
Many remain single-location operations. Others disappear after relatively short runs.
Sylvie Dee’s is taking a different path.
Since June 2024, the company has expanded from one approximately 800-square-foot neighborhood shop to three locations across the St. Louis market.
The original Webster Groves location established the concept.
City Foundry gave Sylvie Dee’s exposure inside one of the region’s most prominent food and entertainment developments.
Clayton gives the company both another neighborhood market and the production space necessary to expand its pastry program.
The owners’ investment in Maypop adds another dimension to that growth.
Important business figures have not been publicly disclosed in the reliable reporting reviewed by STL.News. The total investment in the Clayton renovation, the number of employees added by the new location, and detailed revenue figures for Sylvie Dee’s remain unknown.
Those numbers should not be estimated.
The available facts nevertheless show significant growth for a locally owned concept.
Sylvie Dee’s has opened three locations in a little more than two years, undertaken a substantial renovation in downtown Clayton, brought pastry production in-house and established a kitchen intended to support more than a single storefront.
For Rachel and Jay Closson, the Oct. 3 opening therefore represents more than the addition of another place to buy ice cream.
It marks the next stage in turning a small Webster Groves neighborhood concept into a growing St. Louis-area business.
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