St. Louis

In an attempt to broaden our horizons, we reached out to other city-focused blogs across the Midwest. Our goal is to provide a quality tour guide for city-lovers in each large Midwestern city. We asked each of our writers recommend around 10 things that can be done in their city and to orientate the guide around someone staying at a downtown hotel without a car (including transit options if anything was outside of walking distance). Each guide author took things in a slightly different direction, and the resulting collection of articles has something for everyone.

Our fifth profile is of St. Louis, and is written by Alex Ihnen who runs UrbanSTL and Matt Mourning of Dotage St. Louis. Alex is a member of the City to River effort and also runs Staying in STL.

St. Louis

Where you’re staying:

Drury Inn
711 North Broadway
St Louis, MO 63102-2106
(314) 231-8100
druryhotels.com‎

You’ll be staying in the historic Union Market building, the site of a public market beginning in 1866. The current building dates from 1924 and was built by the City of St. Louis as a public market. The top floor was added during renovation for use as a hotel. The Drury Hotel chain is a St. Louis local, affordable, well-rated and well-known for their free breakfast and drinks.

How to get around:

St. Louis is served by MetroLink and bus service. The light rail line has several stops downtown, connects directly with the airport and will get you to The Loop, Forest Park, the Central West End and near The Grove. The buses are cheap and reliable and can get you everywhere else. Visit the Metro website and find transit directions on Google Maps.

City Museum/Washington Avenue

You may want to save City Museum for your last day in St. Louis. If you go there first you may never leave. And that would be a shame as the City has a lot to see. City Museum is the place you would have built if you could turn your dreams into a playground. There’s a ferris wheel on the roof, seven-story slide, aquarium, the outdoor MonstroCity and much, much more. Stroll Washington Avenue from your hotel to 20^th Street and you’ll see the heart of downtown revitalization and loft development in St. Louis. Loft District highlights include the Flamingo Bowl, the Washington Avenue Post (everyone’s favorite coffee shop-office supply store), and the London Tea Room (if you’re seeking tea leaves rather than coffee beans).

Soulard/Lafayette Square

Soulard displays St. Louis’s French heritage. Home to corner pubs, jazz, and Creole/Cajun food, Soulard is true to its New Orleans/Louisiana roots. (In French, “Soulard” roughly translates to drunkard, fittingly). The Soulard Market, among the oldest public markets in the country, is located at 9th and Lafayette Streets. Try great “Jersey-style” pizza at Ferraro’s; Nawlins-style food at Molly’s; or grab some coffee and brunch at Soulard Coffee Garden. Seafood at 1860s Hardshell Cafe should be followed with cocktails.

Lafayette Square hosts the oldest public park west of the Mississippi, ringed with “Painted Ladies” and a picturesque wrought iron fence. Park Avenue is a small business district that’s host to Park Avenue Coffee, boasting more than 70 flavors of a local-only morsel, gooey-butter cake – don’t ask, just eat! Nearby you’ll find the 33 Wine Bar, and Bailey’s Chocolate Bar as well as Arcelia’s Mexican restaurant. For diner, explore 1111 Mississippi or the rooftop experience of Vin de Set.

St. Louis Arch/City Garden/Broadway Blues District

Sure they’re on all tourist agendas, but they’re worth it. Eero Saarinen’s iconic monument to westward expansion is just blocks from your hotel. Visit the underground museum and ride a tram to the top, 630 feet above the city. The museum and Arch grounds may not be the most vibrant part of downtown, but that’s why you need to see it now. A design competition is underway to transform the grounds, its connections to the city and the east side of the river. Vast changes will be announced later this year and implemented in time for the park’s 50th anniversary in 2015.

Look west into the city from the Arch and you will see the Old Courthouse, site of the Dred Scott decision, now a free museum. Four blocks beyond that is City Garden. Two dozen remarkable sculptures and $40M have transformed two square blocks of the Gateway Mall. Water features, limestone bluffs, prairie grass and a serpentine wall mimic the Mississippi River landscape in what has already become one of St. Louis’s favorite picnic spots.

The Broadway Blues District has a lot to be blue about: all but a handful of historic building were torn down and became surface parking to serve nearby Busch Stadium. However, what remains is nothing less than stellar. The Eugene Field House Museum honors its namesake toymaker and poet (think “Winkin, Blinkin, and Nod”), while three blues bars (BB’s, Beale on Broadway, and the Broadway Oyster Bar) beckon St. Louisans from across the region to sample the city’s best food and music. Make sure to seek out Kim Massie, a soul singer if there ever was one, at Beale on Tuesday and Thursday nights.

Forest Park

At 1,293 acres, Forest Park is big. However, it’s not the size, but what you can do in the park that brings millions of visitors each year. You can visit the Missouri History Museum, St. Louis Art Museum, Science Center and Zoo for free. There is also 27 holes of golf, a professional tennis center, boat rentals (at the Boat House restaurant), bike rentals (visitor’s center), an 11,000-seat outdoor Municipal Opera Theatre (AKA the Muny) and a one-lap 6-mile trail if you’re looking for more.

The Loop

Delmar Avenue has been named one of America’s 10 best streets by the American Planning Association. Named for the streetcar that once looped around the west end of the street, the Loop has a bit of everything. You can see Chuck Berry perform monthly at Blueberry Hill, grab a locally brewed root-beer at Fitz’s, shop for records at Vintage Vinyl, catch a movie at the historic Tivoli Theatre and peruse the St. Louis Walk of Fame at your feet. Pi, President Obama’s favorite pizza, is here too. You can rent bicycles at Big Shark. If downtown doesn’t seem to cut it for you, you could try out St. Louis’s newest boutique hotel, the Moonrise, opened by Loop proprietor Joe Edwards. If you regret your decision, you can always hop to the rooftop bar and watch the moon rise over the Arch, 7 miles to the east.

The Hill

True Italy, the Hill is where baseball greats Yogi Berra and Joe Garagiola called home between seasons, and it’s still home to a flourishing Italian-American community. Visit the Missouri Baking Company for Italian dolce, Volpi for market fare and then visit Milo’s for a round of bocce. The homes are modest, but well-kept and you’ll see more Madonna statues in front yards than you can count. Markets and restaurants are scattered throughout the neighborhood while Marconi, Edwards, and Shaw are the primary commercial streets.

Cherokee/Benton Park

Cherokee Street is a little bit of everything – a progressive arts district, printmaker’s paradise, a Hispanic business district, a thrift store jackpot, an antique district, a microbrewery and coffee hotspot – in its one and a half mile run from Gravois Avenue to Broadway. Must sees are Firecracker Press, Cranky Yellow, and Apop Records, while must-eats are La Vallesana, Shangri-La Diner, and The Stable, one of the aforementioned microbreweries, is also a distillery.

Benton Park, just north of Cherokee Street, is one of St. Louis’s most revived neighborhoods and is nothing short of a foodie destination these days. Sidney Street Cafe, Niche, and Taste are among the best reviewed restaurants in St. Louis, while Frazer’s and Venice Cafe raise the quirkiness bar to new heights. For a brick version of New Orleans, stroll the residential streets, named for Midwestern states.

Crown Candy/Old North St. Louis

No visit to St. Louis is complete without a stop at the city’s oldest soda fountain, Crown Candy Kitchen, est. 1913. Here, your willpower and stomach will be put to the test: consume five malts in a half hour, and not only does the house pick up the tab, they commemorate the experience with your name on a plaque! Old North is serious business, though. The neighborhood is the most astounding case of urban revitalization in a city that’s known for it. While there’s clearly an incredible amount of work remaining, dozens of once ruined mid-1800s row houses have been restored to their former grandeur. So too has the neighborhood’s centerpiece commercial street, North 14th, which has been re-opened to traffic after an ill-fated turn in the 1970s as a pedestrian mall.

CWE/The Grove

The Central West End is glitz of the St. Louis style. Multi-million dollar mansions line the residential streets (make sure to walk Lenox, Pershing and Hortense) while Euclid is filled with restaurants and boutique retail. Maryland Avenue marks the commercial center of the neighborhood. Coffee Cartel is a 24-hour hub of activity, while the Cupcakery is the go-to spot for its namesake. Upscale diners will enjoy Wildflower, Brasserie by Niche, and Herbie’s Vintage 72, while those on a budget will crave the Mediterranean St. Louis Coffee and Tea Oasis, The Majestic, and the Tortillaria. If you can find it, Maryland House is your hub of see-and-be-seen St. Louis. It’s part of Brennan’s Wine Shop, which also features a basement speakeasy. You don’t have to pious, or Catholic, to enjoy the outright splendor of St. Louis’s Cathedral Basilica on Lindell Boulevard – it has the largest collection of mosaics in the Western Hemisphere. Terrene and the Scottish Arms are further east, but worth a visit.

The Grove is south of the Medical Center and may be the city’s fastest-changing neighborhood. Storefronts vacant for decades are springing back to life and restaurants and other stores are starting to fill in. It may also be the city’s premier neighborhood for alternative lifestyles, but most places cater to everyone. Try the Nepalese-Korean-Indian fare at Everest Café and grab a drink at the Atomic Cowboy. The Grove is also home to the live music venue the Gramophone and White Flag Projects, an independent art gallery.

South Grand/Tower Grove/MOBOT

South Grand is the epicenter of ethnic cuisine in St. Louis, whether Thai, Ahfgan, Ethiopian or Bedouin, you’ll find it here. Try Black Thorn for pizza or Pho Grand for fast – and cheap – Vietnamese. You will also find some of the best gelato in St. Louis at the Gelateria. Then you can walk it off in 289-acre Tower Grove Park, a Victorian oasis featuring ornate pavilions dating to the 1870’s, and one of just four American parks deemed National Historic Landmarks. Adjacent to the Park is the Missouri Botanical Garden. Both were gifted to the city by Henry Shaw. The Botanical Garden, called Shaw’s Garden by locals, does charge a fee – one of the only major St. Louis attractions to do so. If you’re in town on a Wednesday from June 2 to August 4, pack a picnic and join a thousand others for live music at the Garden (Whittaker Music Series). Admission is free after 5pm and live music begins at 7:30pm.

The neighborhoods that surround Tower Grove are some of St. Louis’s most thriving, so make sure to explore by foot and you may just stumble upon the elegance of Flora Place or the funkiness of the Morgan Ford business district.

Thanks again to Alex Ihnen from UrbanSTL and Matt Mourning of Dotage St. Louis for putting this together.

Other Guides

• Chicago Urban Tour Guide
• Columbus Urban Tour Guide
• Indianapolis Urban Tour Guide
• Pittsburgh Urban Tour Guide