Smalls Sliders in Bridgeton, Missouri: The First In the St. Louis Area

Smalls Sliders is an up-and-coming fast-food restaurant chain. Founded in 2019 by restaurant entrepreneur Brandon Landry, the company received early investment from former NFL quarterback Drew Brees. The first Smalls opened up in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, just a stone’s throw from Louisiana State University, and later expanded 80 miles east into New Orleans, where Brees and his family live.

In the years since, Smalls Sliders has opened the chain up to franchise owners, and as a result it has expanded rapidly. As of mid-2025, there are more than 30 Smalls locations across the South and lower Midwest, with many more in the pipeline. One of those locations is in Bridgeton, Missouri, the first in the St. Louis area, with plans for a second STL location in Ellisville underway.

We dropped by … and picked up some food to try.

Getting There

Smalls Sliders in Bridgeton (Google Maps link) sits just southeast of I-270 on St. Charles Rock Road (MO-180). Unless you live in Bridgeton, you’ll probably take I-270 to the Rock Road exit, then head east. Smalls Sliders is a short distance from 270, on the left just past Natural Bridge. It sits on the end of a narrow road, right next to a Starbucks and adjacent to a Planet Fitness.

Parking

Smalls has a small parking lot on property. If you really wanted to eat on site and there weren’t any spaces, you could probably park at Planet Fitness and walk over. Parking, naturally, is free.

Costs and Considerations

The restaurant uses its own lingo to describe its locations and workers. Each restaurant location is called a Can, and employees are squad members. A sign designates the drive-thru as a slide-thru.

The Smalls Sliders location — err, Can — in Bridgeton is open from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. seven days a week.

You can find a menu both outside the restaurant and in the slide-thru lanes.

Like most fast food places, you can either get items a la carte or get combo meals. You can also upgrade your sliders with more patties or extra toppings, or your fries with queso. Smalls sells a small assortment of shakes as well. At the time of my visit in 2025, a basic combo with one slider cost about $6.79, with other combos running higher from there.

Things to Do

Smalls doesn’t have any indoor dining. Instead, there is a pavilion-style eating area with a walk-up window.

Alternatively, you can use the slide-thru, two drive-thru lanes that wrap around the back and far side of the building.

In the slide-thru, a squad member will come up to you with a tablet and ask you for your order. Depending on your car’s location, you may or may not be close enough to see the menu, but the squad member should have physical copies to look at should you need them. You can pay the squad member then and there, who will then direct you on how to proceed.

Our Thoughts

I dropped in on Smalls Sliders on a Monday around 12:30 p.m. in mid-July of 2025. I’d been eyeing the place for a while but had initially held off — when the store first opened the slide-thru line sometimes stretched nearly out to the Rock Road. By the time I went, things had settled down.

While lunch rush was in play when I went, it wasn’t obnoxious. There were maybe half a dozen or so cars ahead of me and a handful of people eating at the Can.

I got into the slide-thru around 12:27 p.m. The squad member who took my order was friendly enough and efficient, directing me on how to merge with the second slide-thru lane on my right. I had my food in hand by 12:39 p.m., about 12 minutes after entering the lane. It seemed the slide-thru was longer when I left, but not by a lot.

I kept things simple: just a single slider and an order of fries, which came out to $5.18 + $0.52 in tax, or $5.70 total. (Note: I paid out of pocket for the food.) I took what I bought home to let the rest of the family sample it.

Sliders, as you likely know, are not large burgers, and this is not a large burger. In fact, the burger is even smaller than the bun, a fact evident once you peel the bun back.

A basic slider has the burger, cheese, a pickle, and an orange sauce, all inside a gourmet bun. The orange sauce, which the chain calls Smauce, tastes to us very much like a Thousand Island-based sauce. It reminds me a lot of Wahl Sauce used by Wahlburgers or, to a lesser extent, Big Mac sauce, which Trader Joe’s has an imitation of. It’s decent sauce, but it’s also somewhere we’ve been before, and it’s something you can imitate pretty good from a local grocer if you know where to look.

The burger itself tastes pretty good. It’s not as tightly packed as a McDonald’s burger, instead reminding me more of a looser patty like what you’d see at, say, Five Guys. Not a world-beater, but better than your typical fast food burger.

The fries were seasoned waffle fries, and they were also pretty good. They have a small amount of kick that is more evident as you eat them, but not excessively so. I didn’t get the queso, but I’m sure they’re good with it.

Because they’re not big burgers, most people will probably want to get the two-slider combo, which runs to $9.29 plus tax. In other words, expect to spend about $10.20 or so with tax for a normal meal. I’ll let you decide if that’s a good value or not.

I can say that the quality of the food is above average for a quick service restaurant, and the atmosphere of the place is unique and cool. It’s a cramped footprint, but now that the initial buzz has worn off, I think it’s easier to get in and out of than it was during the crazy first few months. I’m not sure it was enough of a game-changer that I’ll be back anytime soon, but if you’re a burger fan and you like sampling different kinds of burgers, this might be worth checking out.