St. George • Nearly a century after Prohibition’s end in 1933, St. George finally has what could be its first speakeasy to help ensure diners’ thirst for cocktails and literature never runs dry.
If books and booze seem like a strange brew, it is precisely the blend that is making the Book Club Bistro a hot — albeit now legal but still hidden — commodity for patrons who pack the place to chase upscale comfort food with fun cocktails and a dash of eccentricity.
“We are trying to bring people to a place and an experience that is not typical St. George,” said Kristee Proctor, who co-owns the restaurant at 250 Red Cliffs Drive with Payten Crawford. “We want to give them an experience they won’t find anywhere else.”
Mission accomplished — once people find it, that is. Customers entering the Social District Boutique are often clueless about the eatery’s location until the clerk clues them in by gesturing toward an innocuous bookshelf.
(Book Club Bistro) Kristee Proctor and Payten Crawford, co-owners of the Book Club Bistro in St. George.
With a light push, the bookshelf swings open and they are pulled into a different, darker world — a throwback to the secret bars that thrived during Prohibition when selling alcohol was illegal and drinkers needed to “speak easy or quietly to avoid drawing attention."
True to that heritage, patrons entering the bistro are seated at the bar or tables softly lit by chandeliers and thin Zafferano lamps where they speak in hushed tones and listen to Billie Holliday and other Depression-era singers over the speakers as they sip their drinks and savor the exciting and eccentric ambiance.
Hanging with Sinatra, Book Heads
Overlooking the bar is a bespectacled gold-colored stag sporting a pipe. To the usual customers, he’s known as Felix Sinatra.
“We had a naming contest and that was the winner,” said Crawford, who crafts the 23 cocktails on the menu. “We have a cocktail named after him.” The Felix Sinatra is a potent mix of Empress gin, Limoncello, St. Germain, grapefruit juice and ginger ale.
Adorning an adjacent wall is “Book Heads,” an AI-generated illustration of seated men and women whose heads have been supplanted with open books.
“I told AI that I wanted to do a speakeasy that was called Book Club and to make me a picture, and that’s what it came up with,” Proctor said.
(Book Club Bistro) Diners eating with the Book Heads painting behind them at the Book Club Bistro in St. George.
Opening the modern-day speakeasy happened organically rather than through careful calculation. The boutique that hides the bistro used to operate a small wine bar and diner in the back of the store until the chef quit, forcing its closure.
When Proctor asked the boutique owner during the Christmas holidays about holding an event there, she was told the bistro was out of business.
“Initially, I decided to help her find someone to rent the kitchen, but later I thought, ‘Why not try to run a restaurant there myself,’ ” said Proctor, who loves to cook but had no restaurant experience at that point.
Proctor turned to Crawford, who at the time was managing a Cedar City sports bar, and asked her to check out the shuttered St. George wine bar and see what it would take to turn it into a full-blown restaurant.
“When Payten came down and started looking at it, she said, ‘When I quit my job next week, we are going to have to make some changes,’ ” Proctor recalled. “I told her, ‘If you are serious, then we are going to do this.’”
After extensive remodeling and mapping out the food and drink menu, the duo debuted their speakeasy last February at a gala that featured a performance by acclaimed singer-songwriter Levi Lowrey, who co-wrote the Zac Brown Band’s chart-topping song “Colder Weather.”
As for the origin story for the speakeasy’s name?
“I used to joke with my husband and tell him I was going to the book club when I was actually going for cocktails,” she quipped.
Dishing up quirky cocktails, cuisine
(Book Club Bistro) An old fashion cocktail, which is secreted inside a flask hidden in a hollow book, at the Book Club Bistro in St. George.
After deciding what to call the bistro, Proctor and Crawford were determined no one would call it boring. To that end, they dish up a heap of quirks with their food and drink.
There’s the Hemingway Shot, a Bulleit whiskey served in a shotgun shell, an allusion to the famous writer’s death by suicide. “It’s a little dark …,” according to the menu.
Another cocktail that tops the offbeat charts is the new-fangled Old Fashion, which is poured from a flask hidden in a hollow book.
Other imbibers carry a torch for the Hot Honey Manhattan, a cocktail infused with rosemary honey that sparkles when the flash paper affixed to the glass is lit and burns.
The bar also serves wine and craft beers. And for teetotallers or designated drivers, there are mocktails that Crawford said are every bit as tasty and inventive as their alcohol-infused counterparts.
Dinners are also dished out with some panache. The chicken kabob is served suspended over a bowl of orzo pasta. There’s the meat balls with bacon jam, which consists of five meatballs spiced with parmesan, fresh herbs and garlic and topped with brie and the bistro‘s signature jam.
Another dish, the crab cake with corn relish, pays homage to the delicious crab cakes Proctor used to prepare when she lived in Maryland. One woman who servers have dubbed the “crab lady” recently came to the bistro on five successive days for the crab cakes.
While Crawford oversees the bistro‘s bar, Proctor directs and tends to the cooking chores. All the items on the menu are made from scratch and come from the recipes she amassed while living in various culinary hotspots across the country.
“People love my cooking,” Proctor said. “My husband, Mike, used to say, ‘When you open a restaurant one day, this should be on your menu.’ So some of our menu items come from his suggestions.”
Embracing the book club theme
(Mark Eddington | The Salt Lake Tribune) A hidden door conceals the entrance to the Book Club Bistro in St. George, Thursday, May 15, 2025.
Every item on the food and drink menus, Proctor and Crawford attest, needs to be unique and not replicate what other area restaurants are serving. Ditto for the overall experience. Some customers forgo the bar and lounge on the bistro couch to peruse books like “Tequila Mockingbird” and “Gone with the Gin” for cocktail recipes.
The bistro even has a book club which meets on the last Tuesday of the month to dine and discuss its book of the month. May’s selection is “The Book Thief,” Australian author Markus Zusak‘s bestseller set in Nazi Germany that was adapted in 2013 into a Hollywood movie.
Besides being fodder for conversation, Zusak’s book is also one to sit down with. Diners are treated to an audio version of the novel while taking care of business in the bistro‘s bathroom. Each month features a new bathroom reader and audio recording. Even the checks are presented inside a book.
“As amazing and delicious as the food and cocktails are,” Crawford said, “the whole experience here is so fun and like nothing else in St. George.”
For more information on the novel restaurant, follow the Book Club Bistro on Instagram and Facebook.