When Abby McGuire, sophomore, learned from her mom that a new restaurant had opened in the plaza near her house, she decided to visit.
“I just really like the experience,” McGuire said. “There’s usually a good amount of people there when I go.”
Whadda-Ya-Want? Eclectic Kitchen, located in Chesterfield, opened in April 2025. The restaurant participated in the Taste of Marquette earlier this year.
McGuire has recently started going to the restaurant more often, and now goes to Whadda-Ya-Want? Eclectic Kitchen one to two times a week.
McGuire said she sticks to her favorite menu item, which is a latte called The Daydream. The Daydream is a blend of espresso, milk, white chocolate sauce, and vanilla. She said she occasionally tries the different drinks, but prefers to stick to her usual.
“It’s a small business. I think they have good customers, and are trying to grow,” McGuire said.
Derek Thomas, owner of Whadda-Ya-Want? Eclectic Kitchen always wanted to open his own business.
“Everything about being able to bring on a team of great people and teach them how to do things better. Teaching them to be the best version of themselves in service of others,” Thomas said. “That’s what it’s all about.”
When Thomas was 20, he was a Subway franchise owner, and he said that experience gave him a better understanding of the food industry.
Thomas said he opened Whadda-Ya-Want? Eclectic Kitchen because he wanted to start something a little different.
“I have been in the food industry for 30 plus years,” Thomas said. “I had a good grasp of what corporate life was like, and it was time.”
Thomas said the restaurant’s name came from a recurring debate over family dinner. Thomas has four kids, and every night, the family would argue and he would ask: what do you want?
“I was like ‘you know if I just named the restaurant Whadda-Ya-Want? every time we had this fight, we’d just be like that’s where we should go,’” Thomas said.
Thomas said the best-selling items at Whadda-Ya-Want? Eclectic Kitchen are the steakburgers, gyros, and their fried chicken and wings.
The restaurant uses potato rolls for every burger instead of standard hamburger buns, because they want the products to all be special, Thomas said. Customers often notice the difference the buns make, which is what makes the steakburgers so popular, along with the fact that their patties are hand smashed.
Thomas said his restaurant does it the right way since all of their products are made at the restaurant, such as the sauces, burger buns, and even chips.
“We just do a lot of little things that the bigger brands don’t care to take time to do,” Thomas said.
Since the opening of his restaurant, Thomas has emphasized a work-family life balance.
“I have made it a core tenet of not only my life, but also the life of my team, where family comes first,” Thomas said. “If my kids have a baseball game, I’m not going to be here [the restaurant]. I have plenty of great people that will be here. And likewise, I tell them, if you’ve got something going on with your family, that takes precedent.”
Thomas said the quality of people he has working at his restaurant isn’t replicable.
“Every time somebody stops me and says, ‘I love that place,’ that’s an awesome feeling,” Thomas said. “They almost always follow it up [with] ‘you have great people that work there.’ I couldn’t be prouder.”
Rylee Thomas, daughter of Derek Thomas, works almost every Saturday and Sunday as a cashier and will sometimes help with orders.
“If there’s, like, ever a slow day, I like to try new things and practice using the grill and stuff like that because I’m not trained quite yet,” Rylee said.
Rylee said her favorite memory regarding the restaurant was when her dad took her and her little brother to go and look at the restaurant. She was most excited about being able to work with her dad.
“It’s like one big family. And honestly, it’s like a second home,” Rylee said.