Riverfront Times, City Guide 2024

Strawberry cake at Zlante Kapi. ZACHARY LINHARES

Take a Walk on the St. Louis Side

St. Louis ought to be one of the most walkable cities in America. We have the scale — the blocks of two- and three-story storefronts, the corner bars and rows of rowhouses, the density that newer cities can only dream of. We have the trees forming that wonderful leafy canopy. We have the parks to bridge the gaps between our neighborhoods. It’s all there, really.

Now, we’ve done a lot to screw up these long-standing advantages, from carving canyons of interstates through the central core to letting drivers run wild with few consequences for years on

end. But we have the raw goods — and in this year’s City Guide, we’re celebrating some of the region’s great walkable districts. From deep south city to the Delmar Loop, our writers ditched their cars, set off exploring and came back with stories to tell. We’re also profiling efforts to better the built landscape for pedestrians, from developers saving old buildings to initiatives to calm those wild St. Louis motorists.

It’s all in these pages, and we hope you’ll settle in and journey with us — and then get out there to see it all for yourself. Next time, we hope it will be on foot.

Sarah Fenske Executive Editor

A walk in the Delmar Loop may lead you to a hidden treasure like the U-City Grill. ZACHARY LINHARES

A Real Alley Cat

Inspired by St. Louis’ 600 miles of alleys, Gary Newcomer wrote his dissertation on them — and argues these hidden spaces deserve our attention

BY RYAN KRULL

“If you want to truly know a neighborhood, you have to walk down the alley. That’s where you see the truth. That’s where it really happens,” says Gary Newcomer, St. Louis’ foremost expert on the topic of its alleys. His interest isn’t just academic — though it is that, too. He’s spent as much time as anyone traversing up and down them.

The 32-year-old’s enthusiasm for alleys dates back to his childhood in St. Louis Hills and Princeton Heights, where he spent evenings and weekends in the alley with his neighborhood friends playing basketball and hide and seek among the dumpsters.

“Growing up, it sort of became kind of an identifying thing, having an alley meant that you were from the city. If you had an alley, it was a very distinguishing thing,” he says.

After earning a bachelor’s from Boston College, Newcomer returned to St. Louis for graduate school, where as part of his master’s degree in urban planning and development he began his alley research in earnest, eventually producing a thesis titled “Alley-OOPS! The Economic Impact of Forgetting the Back Streets.”

Alleys have existed since ancient Rome, he says, and the ones in St. Louis took shape in the late 19th and early 20th centuries as the city’s population boomed.

“Alleys were like an escape valve, a space where people can be, but also a space where the trash can be, a space that could look bad so the front could still look good,” he says. “If you need to do anything behind the scenes to keep the city running, it happens in the alley.”

Newcomer wanted to know what sort of role alleys play in shaping the neighborhoods surrounding them. Did a good alley make for a good neighborhood? A bad alley for a bad neighborhood? What even made an alley good or bad to begin with?

Luckily for Newcomer, he was in the right city. St. Louis holds 600 miles of alleys within its limits. He focused his energy on 14 alleys in four neighborhoods and started walking, devoting several days a week to the enterprise over the course of a year — as he puts it, an “embarrassing” amount of time walking the alleys.

He got yelled at. He got the cops called on him. Mostly, the typical alley

In St. Louis, says Gary Newcomer, alleys have always been "a very distinguishing thing." COURTESY PHOTO

denizens were confused.

“People would constantly come up to me and ask me questions, and when I said what I was doing, they didn’t understand,” he says. “They were very skeptical. I just started telling people I was doing research for the city. I brought a clipboard and I’d look at the dumpster and take notes.”

The alleys of the city, he learned, are as varied as the neighborhoods themselves. One Compton Heights alley has been restored to its original brick, which allows it to drain more efficiently. In Lindenwood Park there is an alley that starts off normally enough, but gradually gets narrower and narrower until all of a sudden the pavement disappears, turning to grass, and the garages on either side get closer and closer together. “Then you get stuck,” Newcomer says. There are few spots in North Pointe that should be alleys

“If you need to do anything behind the scenes to keep the city running, it happens in the alley.”

— there are fences and electrical wires and other alley accouterments — but instead of a hard surface, there is now only trees and weeds and grass.

The North Pointe non-alleys are likely a direct result of alleys historically being seen as a haven for criminality and general sketchiness, which resulted in efforts by government agencies like the Alley Dwelling Authority to eliminate them in Black neighborhoods. (The Alley Dwelling

A recently rehabbed alley in St. Louis' Compton Heights neighborhood. ZACHARY

Authority was never active in St. Louis, but its existence elsewhere in the U.S. from 1934 to 1973 speaks to the general anxiety alleys have provoked.)

While Newcomer’s qualitative research consisted of months and months of walking, he investigated our alleys quantitatively, too, finding that access to an alley will on average boost the value of your home in the city by 3.9 percent. Despite all his research, Newcomer isn’t exactly sure why that is, especially given that when people are looking for homes they rarely take the alley into consideration, except for those who expressly say they want an abode without one.

“My initial thought is that if you have an alley, you don’t have the trash in the front of the house, you’re more likely to have trees in the front of the house,” he says. “So when people are looking at houses, they’re more likely to choose the house that looks pretty on the outside.”

Newcomer stresses that is just a guess. However, one thing he is certain of is that you can learn a lot about a block by its alley.

Bad signs include gates that sport padlocks locked and rusty from little use. Same for newly constructed, very high

fences. A “private property” sign signaling a homeowner is trying to claim a swath of the alley as their own is perhaps the worst of all.

On the flip side, a flourishing block may well feature an alley with basketball hoops, miniature gardens and, ultimately, a sense of what Newcomer identifies in his thesis as a slightly “blurred distinction between the private and public realms.” Best of all, in alley terms, is a sign indicating some neighbor has taken it upon themselves to name the alley as if it were a street. These signs, Newcomer writes, go a long way in “counteracting the perceptions of the alley as a wild and unregulated space.”

Newcomer is currently living in Sweden as his partner, a microbiologist, works for Nestle there. “There aren’t as many alleys here,” he says.

He hopes to one day return to St. Louis and again traverse the alleys of the Gateway City, furthering his research and our understanding of these underappreciated thoroughfares.

“Why is St. Louis not the epicenter of alley research? We should be,” he says. “There’s so much to do. There’s so much to learn.” CG

Caution signs signify the end of an alley to nowhere in the Lindenwood Park neighborhood. ZACHARY LINHARES

The Day of the Locust (Street)

Midtown is having a moment — but it took decades of planning, dozens of rehabs and one man with a plan

BY SARAH FENSKE PHOTOS BY ZACHARY LINHARES

When Jassen Johnson was an undergrad, he drove through Midtown St. Louis so much that it changed his entire life.

At the time, Johnson was studying architecture at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, but he was working on a project in East St. Louis, and to prevent a long commute back and forth to campus, or a costly hotel stay, he crashed with a family member in the Central West End. Twenty-four years ago, before I-64 cut through the heart of St. Louis, streets like Locust were the obvious path.

But for Johnson, Locust wasn’t just the fastest way to the Poplar Street Bridge. It was a source of fascination. “Driving back and forth, I used to wonder, ‘Why isn’t this getting redeveloped? There are so many good things around it,’” he recalls. It reminded him of the Delmar Loop — “the scale of the buildings, how pedestrian-friendly they are,” he says. “It had the exact same sort of vibe.”

Johnson was onto something, as a stroll down the street today makes clear. In recent years Locust Street has seemingly come out of nowhere to compete with, and even surpass, the Loop in attracting buzzy restaurants and creative white-collar companies with ambitious plans. It is, in many ways, the coolest street in St. Louis right now, with destinations for shopping (the Golden Gems empire has its flagship here) nightlife (Brennan’s Work + Leisure , the brand-new Hidden Gem , Small Batch ) and everything from a chance to reset your brain (Float STL ) to the opportunity to catch a rock show (Red Flag ).

It didn’t happen by accident. Not only did Johnson draw up a neighborhood development plan for Midtown as a master’s student in architecture, but he went on to found a company, Renaissance Development Company, that can boast rehabbing no fewer than 76 buildings in the immediate vicinity.

Golden Gems located its flagship on Locust and has since opened a bar, Hidden Gem, there as well.

In many ways, Johnson says, only a company like his could have done it. The same pedestrian-friendly scale that attracted him to the buildings on Locust made them prohibitive to others. “The economies of scale weren’t very viable for a bigger developer,” he says. “But at the same time, they were kind of too big for the average do-it-yourself-er.”

Andrew Weil, executive director of the Landmarks Association of St. Louis, says Johnson’s efforts didn’t just lead to a thriving district. They also saved dozens of buildings from the wrecking ball.

The neighborhood got its start as Automotive Row in the early years of the 20th century. Not long after a host of small manufacturers sprung up in and around Midtown, seeking to make new-fangled “horseless buggies” and the parts that went into them, dealerships moved in, many on Locust.

The district’s successful application to the National Register of Historic Places, completed in 2005, tells the story: “Around 1920, dealers began to demand that buildings be constructed to ‘fit’ the automobiles they demonstrated. This trend started even earlier in St. Louis, with several such buildings along Locust Street dating to as early as 1914. Convert-

ed buildings were problematic — automobiles could not be easily moved in or out of existing doorways, and interior supports limited movement inside the building. More often than not, buildings constructed for sales and service were brick commercial style properties ‘with a large door facing the street, which was used as a vehicle entrance into the rear service area. Space was allotted in the front for offices and for the display of one or more new vehicles.’ Such buildings were typically constructed with facades that reflected commercial styles popular during the early 1900s, like those that remain along Locust Street today.”

By the time Johnson was driving the streets, in the early aughts, those dealerships were long gone, headed to bigger plots of land with better highway access. And Saint Louis University’s famously autocratic president, Father Lawrence Biondi, was unenthused about what he saw as blighted buildings on the perimeter of campus.

“I remember they tore down an 1880s livery stable around 2007,” Weil recalls. “That was at the point where the Locust Street Business District was starting to coalesce and people were investing in these buildings.” But, he says, “SLU was

Jassen Johnson (at Renaissance Development's HQ) has seen his vision for Midtown become reality.

still in the mindset that these were unusable eyesores.”

That mindset had led to major clearances of the surrounding residential neighborhoods, something Weil can’t help but mourn even today, recalling Mill Creek Valley, the thriving Black enclave in Midtown that was cleared in the name of urban renewal in the 1950s. “If that ‘intervention’ hadn’t happened, if those neighborhoods were left alone, they’d probably be among the most desirable in the City of St. Louis today,” Weil says.

But in the case of Midtown, preservationists and entrepreneurs got there before the wrecking ball. One such pioneer was Joy Grdnic Christensen, famous as “Joy in the Morning” on KSHE, who opened the beloved restaurant Fountain on Locust in 2008. “She put her money where her mouth was and invested when there was not yet a business district,” Weil says. Christensen sold a few years ago, but the place is still going strong today.

For Johnson, making the district what it is was a matter of going building by building, block by block, slowly building a critical mass — and taking pains not to cannibalize the businesses that moved in by also bringing in competitors. John-

son’s company has also worked hard to help startups grow without leaving the district, letting them out of their leases early if they needed more space, even while working with them to find a spot in the district. Other startups have then swiftly stepped up to take their places.

It’s taken two decades, but Johnson finally sees the kind of critical mass of businesses and residences that can support businesses like the new Hidden Gem bar or the cigar bar that’s coming soon. “All the hard work has been done on building density,” he says. Having a new major league soccer stadium constructed on the district’s eastern edge, something even Johnson never anticipated, proved the cherry on top.

For someone who dreamed about Midtown’s potential as a kid fresh out of small-town Illinois, the reality is sometimes enough to stop Johnson in his tracks. He sometimes wonders how different his life would be if he’d gravitated to Chicago instead of St. Louis after graduation. And St. Louis should probably be contemplating the same question. How different would Midtown be if a young architecture student hadn’t seen its potential? How many other great walkable districts have we lost? CG

Anita's Bar and Cafe is part of a restaurant-rich complex on Locust redeveloped by Johnson's company.

Chasing the St. Louis Dream on Gravois

Bevo Mill ’s affordable rents have attracted a host of refugees and immigrants — and the food they're using to build businesses

BY PAULA TREDWAY

The American dream is alive and well in Bevo Mill.

What was originally a German-centered neighborhood has over the decades become home to immigrants from Iran, Mexico, Syria and more. In the late 1990s, the dense, walkable neighborhood housed so many refugees from Bosnia that it took on the nickname “Little Bosnia.”

But as many Bosnians have moved to the leafier suburbs of south county, the businesses they opened have been replaced by ones started by newer immigrants. These entrepreneurs are seeking the American dream in St. Louis for themselves and their families by opening bakeries, cafés, taverns, nightclubs, restaurants, grocery stores and butcher shops.

One of these entrepreneurs is Hadi Ehsani.

Born in Iran, Ehsani immigrated to the

PHOTOS BY ZACHARY LINHARES

United States in 2016 after spending five years as a refugee in Turkey. After a few years in St. Louis, Ehsani decided to follow his dream of cooking wholesome food for his community. In March of 2023, Ehsani opened Ehsani’s Hot Kabob (4561 Gravois Avenue).

“This is the first time opening a restaurant,” says Ehsani. “I never had a restaurant anywhere. I just like making food for family and friends or parties, but I never had a restaurant before.”

Ehsani says he has a lot of friends in the restaurant business whom he helped before opening a place of his own.

“And since starting, I’m really happy, a lot of customers come in here,” he says. “I’m really happy.”

Though Ehsani eventually found the perfect spot for his restaurant in the building that was previously home to Mariscos El Gato, Bevo Mill wasn’t his first choice in neighborhoods.

Hadi Ehsani, owner of Ehsani’s Hot Kabob, sees Gravois as the perfect place to get started.

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“At first I tried for the west county, Manchester, Ballwin and the Delmar Loop close to the university,” he explains. “But I didn’t have any recipe for the restaurant, so nobody gave me the location. I would say, ‘I will pay money for three or four months’ rent,’ but it didn’t matter. It took me more than two years to find a space. I would go and talk to the owner and tell them I have experience from my country, but they would say no. My last shot was coming to this area. The first landlord said no, but I have a couple friends who talked to him and said I have the experience of making the food so he accepted.”

Despite growing up in Iran, Ehsani considers himself Afghan.

“Because my mom, dad and grandmother, grandfather are all from Afghanistan, we all say that,” he says. “But I’m really happy for my U.S. citizenship, but I’m also really happy to be from Afghanistan.”

As a self-taught cook, Ehsani developed an interest in cooking at an early age while grilling with his uncle and dad during family gatherings back in Iran.

“I was making food for more than 100 people by myself by the time I was 20 years old,” Ehsani says. “Everybody would come and say everything is so delicious and so good.”

To ensure the freshness and quality of the food, Ehsani marinates the meat every Monday to prepare for the busy week ahead.

“Because we are selling fresh meat, we don’t have it frozen for more than a couple of days,” he explains. “Everybody is happy because they’re given it fresh. Every day we are busy with customers.”

When dining in, guests are presented with large silver platters filled with basmati rice, veggies and kabobs.

The menu features a robust blend of dishes from Iran, Turkey and Afghanistan as well as some dishes created by Ehsani himself.

“The kabob is a healthy food,” Ehsani says. “All the meat is fresh and everything is organic. We use top organic saffron from Afghanistan. We don’t use a fryer, and cook all the foods on the gas grill over lava stone.”

The KhoshBash Kabob, a dish of his own creation, features marinated boneless back strap butchered from a whole lamb. The Koobideh Kabob, a top-seller, is made of marinated lean ground beef and lamb.

“Everybody who comes to my restaurant loves the fresh and healthy taste of the kabobs,” Ehsani says. “Once you come try it once, you’ll want to come back.”

Looking toward the future, Ehsani is eyeing the Ballwin area for a potential space now that he has the experience, customer reviews and favorable articles in several publications.

Down the road from Ehsani’s is Majeed Mediterranean Restaurant (4601 Gravois Avenue, 314-282-0981) run by Abdulhak and Ibrahim Majeed, brothers who originally opened the restaurant with their father Mamdouh.

Unlike Ehsani, Majeed’s owners do not see Bevo Mill as a mere starting point. In fact, the restaurant is now in its second location on Gravois. Before settling in its current location, Majeed was in a smaller storefront previously occupied by a Honduran restaurant.

“I like this area,” Abdulhak says about Bevo Mill. “I’ve been here for six years, I’ve never had any issues.”

Majeed’s newer location offers off-street parking, patio space and an overall enjoyable environment with contemporary Arabic-language music playing, similar to what would have been playing at the restaurant the family once ran in Syria.

The Majeed family owned two businesses of their own back in Hama — a construction design company and a restaurant. Determined to reclaim some of their identity and strike out on their own in their new home, Abdulhak and Ibrahim decided to follow in their father’s entrepreneurial footsteps. They just didn’t think it would be in the U.S.

Back in 2009, not long after the Syrian civil war began, the family felt that they couldn’t recognize their hometown anymore. Mamdouh had enough when a school was bombed. He sent his wife and youngest son to Turkey, but Abdulhak and Ibrahim chose to stay behind to help

maintain the family’s land, business and extended family ties.

On the evening of Eid al-Adha in 2011, the Majeed men heard the explosion of a neighboring school, which shook their house as well as their confidence in their hometown. They left everything behind to create a more stable life in Turkey.

At the urging of an international refugee nonprofit in Turkey, the elder Majeed was persuaded to apply for refugee status in the U.S. Upon approval, the family was placed in St. Louis.

Abdulhak and Ibrahim opened Majeed in 2018 along with their father, who has since retired from the restaurant business. It wasn’t easy. They didn’t speak English, didn’t have a car and didn’t have much money.

“If you’re going to start doing some business, if you’re going to open a business,” Abdulhak explains, “it’s not easy for you to start in business because everything is expensive.”

The restaurant serves a wide variety of Syrian specialties, including beef fatayer, a half-moon-shaped pastry filled with ground

meat, onions and spices. The RFT ’s then-critic, Cheryl Baehr, wrote in 2018 that the flaky, samosa-like shell soaks up the beef jus, leaving no sauce necessary, while grape leaves, rolled with a mixture of ground lamb, beef and rice, were rich and bright. But the highlight for Baehr was the Syria chicken. “[It’s] a leg and thigh quarter that is seared to crisp the outside skin, then slow-cooked with potatoes, olive oil and spices,” she wrote. “The fat from the chicken forms a deep, schmaltzy gravy that caramelizes like brown butter. It soaks into the softened potato slices, giving the same rich effect you get from cooking potatoes in duck fat.”

For Abdulhak, Bevo Mill isn’t just a place to do business. It’s a place to build a community — one that draws people from across the metro. He notes, “Some people come from Illinois, some come from Ballwin, from south county, everywhere.”

Many of them still come to Bevo Mill seeking Bosnian food, even though some of the area’s original Bosnian destinations have closed, including Grbic Restaurant. But some Bosnian immigrants are

For Abdulhak Majeed, owner of Majeed Mediterranean, Bevo Mill is a place to build community .

keeping the neighborhood’s identity alive even while welcoming an influx of newcomers from other parts of the world.

One of them is Bedita Rizvanovic, who owns Zlatne Kapi (5415 Gravois Avenue), a Bosnian cafe and deli. Rizvanovic, who was born in Teslic, Bosnia, and her family moved to St. Louis from Germany in 2000 after war broke out in what had been Yugoslavia.

“It was two years into the war,” she says. “In ’94, we moved to Germany. I lived in Germany for five or six years. I got married, I got my kids. My mom, my dad and my uncle moved here to St. Louis, so they are the reason why I’m here.”

Once in St. Louis, Rizvanovic continued her education.

“I learned English for eight years in middle school and in high school,” Rizvanovic explains. “When I came here, I went to the International Institute, and I was already at a 2500 level of English so I just learned English and went to Forest Park Community College.”

She then took a job at a law firm in Clayton where she worked in the collections department for seven years. It wasn’t until 2008 when she decided to open her own business.

“My dad and my brother got this

building 20 years ago,” she says. “They remodeled it and it was a nasty thing. They decided to open the butcher shop next door, but my passion was cakes. When I was a kid, I was like in seventh grade. I made cakes for my brothers, my mom or my dad. I just love it.”

Zlatne Kapi’s menu offers traditional Bosian food including ćevap, pljeskavica (a flavorful minced meat burger), sudžukice (a traditional skinless beef sausage), doner, tufahije (a stuffed apple dessert), hurmašice (a syrup-drenched pastry), baklava, rolade, voćni kolač (a fruit cake), tulumbe (a deep-fried dessert) and oblatne (a wafer cake), as well as grilled chicken sandwiches, chicken salad sandwiches, classic cheeseburgers, a house salad, chicken salad, pasta salad and steaks.

Rizvanovic also makes and decorates specialty cakes for different occasions.

“I make maybe 50 cakes a week, not counting the small cakes,” she says. “I do birthdays. Christmas is the busiest.”

Sharing her culture in Bevo Mill has given Rizvanovic the opportunity to meet many different people.

“I love everybody,” Rizvanovic says. “I have a lot of Albanians who come in and I’ve met some Irish people. I have so many people coming in who visit from some other state like New York and they will stop here and they love the Turkish coffee. I like meeting new people.”

Though things have been tough since COVID-19, Rizvanovic is thankful she still has her business.

“The best opportunity and the best life is in the USA,” she says. “You can go everywhere, you have so much, you can go to the school wherever you want and nobody cares who you are. Missouri is a place for families.” CG

Ehsani’s Hot Kabob is open Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday from 3:30 to 9 p.m., Saturday from 11 a.m. to 9:30 p.m. and Sunday from noon to 9 p.m. Majeed Mediterranean Restaurant is open daily from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. To order online, visit Majeed’s website. Zlatne Kapi is open Wednesday through Monday from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m.

Bedita Rizvanovic came to St. Louis with family and eventually opened Zlatne Kapi on Gravois.

Day Drinking in

Maplewood

One man’s pleasantly sloshed journey through the heart of St. Louis’ most barely suburban suburb

BY COLLIN PRECIADO PHOTOS BY COLLIN PRECIADO

There are a lot of great walkable neighborhoods in St. Louis, and almost all of them have a very definable niche. There’s the upscale swankiness of downtown Clayton, there’s the LGBTQ+ spirit of the Grove, and there’s also that neighborhood where my wife’s friend recently witnessed a man pooping into a storm drain during Mardi Gras. You know the one.

Very few, however, have the type of broad appeal that can be found in downtown Maplewood. It’s an area whose restaurants and businesses are so varied that its character is impossible to pin down. But I wanted to try anyway. So on a cold and overcast weekday afternoon I spent a few hours there on foot, indulging in some highly disciplined day drinking and shopping, in an effort to encapsulate what some of the locals refer to as “Mapleweird.”

My journey began on Manchester Avenue at Side Project Brewing , a place that only serves alcohol. I arrived just before they opened at 1 p.m. and was surprised to find a line of about 15 people waiting to get in. The bartenders here

know their products inside and out, and have an infinite amount of patience when it comes to helping you find the perfect pour, but they definitely do not have time to answer questions about why they have so many customers on a workday, and may just walk away in the middle of your inquiry. I sat down with a delicious 5 oz. tasting of a German-style Pilsner titled Opa, and continued on my way.

The next place I wanted to check out was the hip breakfast and lunch spot the Living Room , located on the offshoot row of businesses on Sutton Avenue. I had always avoided this place due to the fairly serious allergy I have to the prices on brunch menus, but people really like this restaurant, so I put myself in harm’s way. Idiotically I went to the service counter without a plan, and in my panic ordered the first two things I saw, which were a screwdriver and some falafel. I overheard a woman strangely asking an employee where all the cats were, to which they told her she was probably thinking of Mauhaus , the cat cafe down the street. It was not in my original route, but I scarfed down my weirdo order and

Beer, books, comics, food — what more could you need in a neighborhood?

walked the few extra blocks to see it for myself, and took a quick picture of an animal I am actually allergic to.

Walking back up Sutton, I passed by a handful of businesses more familiar to me from my youth, including Strange Donuts , where all the cool kids used to wait in line for a Chocolate Steve on a weekend night; Saratoga Lanes , where the even cooler kids smoked cigarettes while bowling; and Tiffany’s Diner, where the cream of the crop would pound Stag beers and slingers at one in the morning.

I rounded back to Manchester proper, passing by the intimidating dark exterior of Burger Champ and the empty cursed black hole of a spot where Boardwalk Waffles , and many other concepts before it, used to be. I continued on past Eddie’s Guitars and the Post , a sports bar which has some seriously underrated Philly cheesesteaks. I checked into a hipster-ish pub called the Crow’s Nest for a pint of 4 Hands’ Divided Sky and again was surprised to find it also very busy. I checked my phone to make sure it wasn’t a holiday, or that a meteor wasn’t headed straight for the planet, and came to the conclusion that Maplewood just likes to blow off some steam at lunch time.

Next I made my way to the Book House , a throwback independent bookstore with tomes crammed into mile-high shelves, and everything else stacked up waist-high on the floor. I briefly chatted with owner Michelle Barron about the nearly 40-year history of the business, her cats Zelda and Gatsby (whom I am also allergic to), and the reassuring book she was currently reading, The Ends of the World: Volcanic Apocalypses, Lethal Oceans, and Our Quest to Understand Earth’s Past Mass Extinctions. My original plan had been to buy a novel that was considered a universal classic, something I could namecheck here to sound like a really smart person, but after a few drinks I instead left with a glow-in-the-dark Nightmare Before Christmas coloring book.

Further down Manchester was a place called Tale to Table , a cured meat store that hosts food classes and events. It had

a sign outside that said to come in for good stories, and when I did that, owners Brian and Kate seemed slightly unamused by my request, but sort of indulged me nonetheless. Sensing a lack of enthusiasm for craft salami and their upcoming trip to the Iberian Peninsula, or perhaps my general discomfort in any social situation ever, they directed me to their sister business Kakao , where I was welcomed with a free sample and left with some dark chocolate.

I stopped into Schlafly Bottleworks for a final, ill-advised hefeweizen and started walking back on the other side of Manchester toward the direction I had come from. I went into the Fantasy Shop and asked them what the current comic books were that everyone was reading. I don’t want to say they tricked me into buying a Spider-Man comic, but they said they had a unique hard-to-find issue they were keeping behind the counter for someone special, and that person ended up being me. I also bought a Zorro comic that takes place in the modern day, which no one had to sell me on.

Eventually I made it to Planet Score Records , the greatest record store in the universe, which is co-owned by my uncle Tim Lohmann, who definitely did not stuff $20 into my hand to write that. I only see my uncle maybe once or twice a year, so we caught up and spilled the tea on different aspects of our chaotic and dysfunctional family drama. I left with a vinyl recording of Leonard Bernstein playing Mahler songs on piano, just so I could class this article up a little bit.

Once I was across the street from where my journey had begun, I called my wife to come pick me up. The original plan had been to have a humongous dinner with her and my kids at Pizza Champ or Thai Table , but I was already pretty close to spending as much money as I was going to be making on writing this ($10,000) so we went to an inferior, cheaper and more toddler-friendly/way louder chain restaurant in the county instead, as is a parent’s responsibility.

In the car I gave the coloring book to my three-year-old son, but only on the condition that he let me use it sometimes. CG

Getting Loopy

After a half-dozen years of turmoil and turnover, the Delmar Loop is making a comeback.

Take a self-guided walking tour by following

in our

footsteps

BY DANIEL HILL PHOTOS BY ZACHARY LINHARES

The Delmar Loop's trolley problem doesn’t seem to be going anywhere anytime soon, kept alive by a potent mix of hubris and the fear of orders to return millions of dollars to the federal government as a penalty for botching the old-timey transportation operation so badly.

But despite early turmoil that saw many of the Loop’s longtime anchors flee the neighborhood due to the seemingly never-ending construction that preceded the trolley’s long-delayed opening in 2018, the most walkable street in the metro area remains a St. Louis gem — and arguably is in the midst of mounting a comeback, with a plethora of shops and eateries and art institutions new and old lining the street.

With that in mind, we offer for your consideration the following itinerary for the perfect stroll through the Loop. This is not an exhaustive list, but it’s one that is sure to treat you right on a sunny Saturday afternoon.

Note that throughout your stroll you’ll notice many metal placards encased in

the sidewalk’s concrete; if it’s rainy outside and you step on one, you’ll also notice that you have fallen violently to the ground. Avoid that, but do have a look: The St. Louis Walk of Fame celebrates many notable folks who have called the city home at some point in their lives, with names including Maya Angelou, Scott Bakula, Lou Brock, Andy Cohen, Miles Davis and more lining the streets. You’ll also want to take note of the Delmar Loop Planet Walk , a scale-model representation of our solar system that lines the sidewalk on the north side of the strip, totaling 2,880 feet and stretching from Neptune to the sun. (Before you ask: Uranus can be found outside of Salt + Smoke, and yes, this has been the location of many juvenile jokes over the years.)

The U City Farmers’ Market (6655 Delmar Boulevard, Rear Lot) might not be as large or as celebrated as some of the other markets in town — Tower Grove, we’re looking at you — but it still has plenty of charm. Park your car in the

The Loop is one of the most pedestrian-friendly streets in St. Louis (even if it's technically not all in St. Louis).

spacious lot east of Kingsland at the intersection of Delmar Boulevard; you’ll spot the market tucked behind W Karaoke Lounge. Here you’ll find a dozen or so vendors peddling grass-fed beef, baklava, handmade jewelry, wild Alaskan seafood, local honey and more. Grab a coffee and cozy up the fire pits if it’s a cold day, and if the stand selling the chorizo burritos and other breakfast treats is open for business on your visit, don’t dare sleep on it. (See midwestfarmersmarkets.org/u-city-farmers-market for hours and more details.)

From here you’re going to want to head east on Delmar, sticking to the sidewalk on the north side of the street. If affordable Chinese fare and/or bubble tea is your thing, pop into Corner 17 (6623 Delmar Boulevard, University City) to see your needs met. Stroll right past Starbucks (if we’re gonna drink some coffee in the Loop it is not going to come from a chain), tip your cap to Fitz’s and Salt + Smoke and that lovely Uranus, wave hello to the Chuck Berry statue, then make your way to Artisans in the Loop (6511 Delmar Boulevard, University City)

Artisans in the Loop reopened in August 2023 under the ownership of Renau and Alison Bozarth, who purchased the now five-year-old gallery from founder Wendy Harris. On a mission to create “a fun and vibrant space for local and regional artists to demonstrate their creative talents and sell their amazing, one-of-a-kind creations,” as stated on its website, the gallery affords St. Louis art lovers the perfect opportunity to check out some new works from some of the region’s most talented creators in a variety of mediums. It’s a great place to pick up a unique gift you wouldn’t find anywhere else while supporting local artists.

Directly next door is the Componere Gallery of Art & Fashion (6509 Delmar Boulevard, University City), another artistic enclave that calls the Loop home. Here you’ll find everything from whimsical industrial-style lamps to abstract paintings to jewelry to portraiture to pottery, all on display and all for sale. Back outside you’ll pass Ranoush (6501 Delmar Boulevard, University City),

which now stands alone as the premier destination for Middle Eastern cuisine in the heart of the Loop since the neighboring Al-Tarboush’s tragic closure last year upon its owner’s retirement.

A little further down the line you’ll come upon the Delmar location of Found Vintage (6325 Delmar Boulevard, University City), a second-hand clothing shop that offers a more curated selection of the hip styles and vintage trends in fashion than you might find at Goodwill or other chain thrift shops. It might cost a little bit more, but it’s worth it. Next on your list is longtime Loop mainstay Sunshine Daydream (6303 Delmar Boulevard, University City), which has moved from its former location by Vintage Vinyl but remains the area’s premier destination for lava lamps, drug rugs, hemp jewelry and all manner of apparel and accessory loudly advertising your undying love of weed.

Once your hippiest desires are fulfilled, head next door to Class6ixx

Vintage Clothing (6275 Delmar Boulevard, University City), one of the Loop’s newest purveyors of used clothing — and arguably the most interesting. The shop is eye-catching on approach, with stacks of classic VHS tapes from the ‘80s and ‘90s in its display window flanked by an old tube TV equipped to play them. Inside you’ll find several jam-packed racks lining the walls of the shop and surrounding a couple of tables with a huge unorganized pile of unfolded clothes sitting atop it. JNCOs, Beverly Hills, 90210 apparel, Super Mario blankets and bootleg band T-shirts abound, with a pricing system the owner describes as “freestyle” — you show him what you’ve unearthed and he tells you what he thinks you should pay. It might take some sifting to get to the gold, but your wardrobe will be richer for the effort.

No proper stroll down Delmar could be had without a stop into Subterranean Books (6271 Delmar Boulevard, University City), a longtime literature-lover’s paradise nestled in the heart of the Loop that’s still going strong after nearly 25 years in business. Grab the book of your choice and head next door to Meshuggah

Cafe (6269 Delmar Boulevard, University City), another beloved Loop mainstay that’s stood the test of time. Order yourself a coffee, crack open your new book and pat yourself on the back for eschewing Starbucks earlier on your walk for this far more enjoyable cafe experience.

Don’t get too comfortable, though — you have more walking to do. A couple doors down from the cafe you’ll find the Loop Wallz Mural Project (6265 Delmar Boulevard, University City), a new endeavor from longtime St. Louis artist Peat Wollaeger, whose work you’ll recognize by its ever-present eyeball motif. The space opened in January and is home to a collection of Wollaeger’s art, any piece of which is sure to add a nice touch of street-art style to any room in your home.

Next up on your itinerary is United Provisions (6241 Delmar Boulevard, University City). More than just the neighborhood’s grocer, the store contains a wide variety of foodstuffs that you

won’t find elsewhere in St. Louis, with selections that span the globe and a particular focus on Asian specialties. Try your luck and purchase something whose packaging features zero English and scant clues as to its specifics — you may find yourself rewarded handsomely.

If you’re like this reporter, you may find yourself feeling parched by this point in your journey. In that case, you’ll want to step inside the Loop location of International Tap House (6217 Delmar Boulevard, University City), where you’ll find a gobsmacking variety of beers on tap and in bottles. Alternatively, if you prefer an activity to accompany your drinking, you could head across Skinker to Pin-Up Bowl (6191 Delmar Boulevard) and spend some time chucking a ball at some pins. If neither of those ideas strike your fancy, perhaps some cocktails at the Eclipse bar atop the Moonrise Hotel (6177 Delmar Boulevard) would hit the spot. Enjoy a bird’s eye view of the Loop and the surrounding streets as you sip in

The racks of Avalon have yielded countless treasures for adventurous fashionistas over the years.

the shadow of the world’s largest man-made moon.

You’re about halfway through your walk at this point, so it’d probably be a good idea to replenish your energy with some grub (and let’s be honest, that alcohol you just drank could use some company). Give the Pageant and Delmar Hall a salute and then survey your nearby food options. You can’t go wrong with Nudo House (6015-A Delmar Boulevard), the ramen destination that’s been feeding Loop dwellers out of the ground floor of the Everly building since 2019. Across the street you have Paris Banh Mi (6118 Delmar Boulevard) and its neighboring K Bop (6120 Delmar Boulevard). The former serves up Vietnamese sandwiches, bubble tea, pho, ramen and Korean corn dogs; the latter opened its physical location in 2020 after years as a popular food truck, and is a must-try destination for fans of Korean street food.

eras. Hop on the St. Louis area’s only indoor Ferris wheel for a quick spin before heading back outside.

Those who prefer their cannabis peddled from a former house of worship will want to head to the church building next door and check out Swade Cannabis (6166 Delmar Boulevard). Come for the weed, stay for the multiple photos of Joe Edwards posing with Cheech and Chong in the building’s lobby.

From here you’re going to want to pop in the nearby Regional Arts Commission (6128 Delmar Boulevard), a local cultural powerhouse with its fingers in a wide swath of the St. Louis area’s artistic efforts. Take in the incredible art adorning the walls of its gallery and thank your lucky stars that we have an institution funneling tax dollars to creative endeavors.

On the other side of the cultural spectrum, and just steps away, you’ll find Magic Mini Golf (6160 Delmar Boulevard), the latest entry in Loop impresario Joe Edwards’ empire, which opened in October. The inside of the family-friendly bar will be familiar to anyone who has spent any time in one of Edwards’ other spots, with the walls lined with collectibles and pop culture memorabilia of all

Alas, MO Art Supply (6174 Delmar Boulevard), which opened in August, closed last month. You can still see the stunning mural on its external wall from St. Louis artist Cbabi Bayoc, though, and downstairs from the shuttered store is the Wizard Wagon (6178 Delmar Boulevard), which since Star Clipper left the Loop has been the shopping district’s go-to source for comic books, along with a wide variety of card and tabletop games as well as other collectibles.

Across Skinker and down a click or two you’ll come to Emporium Smoke Shop (6254 Delmar Boulevard, University City), the Loop’s longtime head shop that has been in operation since the days when you weren’t even allowed to say the word “bong” in the store without getting kicked out. Now in a new location on Delmar proper rather than its former

Peat Wollaeger's eye-centric street art is widely admired in St. Louis, and you can claim some for yourself at his Loop Wallz Mural Project shop.

side-street home, it’s the perfect place to purchase implements in which to insert the wares you picked up at Swade.

About a block down you’re going to want to drop to your knees and scream angrily into the sky as you lament the absolutely tragic loss of the Tivoli Theatre as a space that regularly shows movies, now replaced by a church that is too homophobic to allow showings of even the Rocky Horror Picture Show on the extremely rare occasions it does host a flick. Note too the neighboring building with the sign on the front that says “Integrity” — that building was for years the home of the Riverfront Times , before we managed to escape the constant street construction and bone-shattering trolley tracks. We’re pretty curious as to whether all the marshmallow peeps that had been stuck to the ceiling in various parts of the third floor for years are still there, so if you want to force your way inside and let us know what you see that’d be appreciated.

A few doors down from there is a shop with a “Coming Soon” sign that is marked Alien Robot Expo (6388 Delmar Boulevard, University City) and looks like it’s going to be one of the more eclectic Loop destinations once it finally opens. Press your face against the glass and you’ll see all manner of alien life forms and mechanical men, as well as a coffee table with a giant eagle claw for its feet and a sign that alleges there may eventually be a cafe on site, as well as a selection of quirky art lining the walls that leads one to believe the proprietor of this space must be some sort of eccentric madman. Whatever the specifics, the space seems damn promising.

Next door is Avalon Exchange (6392 Delmar Boulevard, University City), the Loop’s longest-tenured secondhand clothing shop and previously known as Rag-O-Rama. Avalon might be the most affordable of the many such shops that dot the Loop, and its selection of modern and vintage items will keep you fashionable at a reasonable price.

Cross Westgate and you’re on to the great Blueberry Hill (6504 Delmar Boulevard, University City), Edwards’ signature

bar and restaurant, which is overflowing with the collectibles and kitsch for which his businesses are well-known. Even if you aren’t interested in a bite or a drink, there’s so much cool stuff lining the walls of this joint that it’s worth stepping in just to gawk.

From here you’ll want to make your way to Vintage Vinyl (6610 Delmar Boulevard, University City), one of the Loop’s longest-standing anchors and an absolute gem of a shop. In the running as one the St. Louis area’s very best record stores (if not the best!), Vintage Vinyl boasts an expansive selection of new and used music in a variety of formats and is staffed by some of the most knowledgeable employees you could ever hope to encounter in such an environment.

Back outside, you’ll stroll past the now-closed Commerce Bank and the building that formerly housed Craft Alliance before it moved to the Delmar Maker District further east. Continue on your path to Kingsland and cross back to the north side of Delmar, where you’ll approach the long-empty building that used to house Cicero’s (R.I.P.). Continue around to the back of the building for what might be the very best establishment in all the Loop, which we have naturally and deliberately saved for last.

U City Grill (6696 Enright Avenue, University City) is a jewel of a dining establishment, which for more than 30 years has served up some of the best bulgogi, bibimbap and similar Korean comfort food delights in all of St. Louis. The shop is small and staffed for many years solely by the son of founders Yong Sup Sim and So La Sim, who isn’t the type of man who is conversational enough to have given any reporter his name in the many years he’s run the shop. His manner is brusque, his flavors are otherworldly and his eatery is cash-only due to his distrust of technology, which extends to credit card machines.

Belly up to the counter or take your order to go, then you’re just steps from where you parked your car at the beginning of the day — your perfect Loop stroll finally complete. CG

Cutline goes here followed by Art Credit, in All Caps. |

ART CREDIT

In Search of Safer Streets

Calming traffic isn't easy in a city with roads built like highways — but Trailnet is trying

BY LAUREN HARPOLD

Alonzo Harris knows the dangers of St. Louis streets more than most. He’s a postal carrier, which means a lot of time on foot, and with a route that extends from Montana to Chippewa, he sees the worst of Dutchtown drivers.

“It’s like a NASCAR track down Louisiana,” he says, smiling as he walks his route at Osage and Louisiana streets. “All gas, no brakes.”

Four blocks north, at the intersection of Chippewa and Louisiana, scooters, strollers, cyclists and sedans shyly swing around a circular roundabout — a landmark of a city street-calming initiative that currently extends down Louisiana from Gravois to Meramec. The traffic-calming infrastructure includes traffic circles, extended sidewalk corners (bump-outs), higher visibility crosswalks and speed humps, each with goals to reduce speed and foster safety. The

PHOTOS BY ZACHARY LINHARES

project, 10 years in the making, aims to extend south to Carondelet Park in its second phase and north to Tower Grove Park in phase three, stretching just over three miles to connect the two popular parks.

Yet part of a navy-blue car bumper decorates the edge of this particular bump-out, suggestive of cars driving into the traffic circle, instead of around it.

While Harris is hesitant to say drivers' habits have significantly changed, he believes the speed humps in particular have worked to slow accelerators. Still, he sees drivers with a level of uncertainty — perhaps confusion —meet stubborn speeders at the traffic circle, which was completed in spring of 2023.

Speeding is not a new story in St. Louis. Streets meant to be thoroughfares encourage thoroughbreds, though this breed is not so selective. Honda Civics,

Chevy Tahoes and Dodge Chargers treat many St. Louis city streets like a racetrack, which often turns walking and biking them into a risk.

St. Louis has hit an inevitable crossroads, no pun intended. A city built for a million residents struggles to properly serve a population that hovers around a third of that anticipated number. Our roads, simply too wide for the volume of motorists they serve, pave a particular historical narrative.

In the early 20th century, mass consumption and the increasingly accessible automobile ushered in a wave of calls for city planning and zoning. Harland Bartholomew arrived from New Jersey in 1916 to fill his position as St. Louis’ first resident city planner. Just seven years later, St. Louis voters passed a then-momentous $87,000,000 public works bond, allocating a large portion of the funds toward street widening in anticipation of a bustling St. Louis. Bartholomew’s ideas and plans inspired funds and infrastructure for the remainder of the 20th century. His visions were solidified in the Comprehensive City Plan of 1947, which he completed only three years prior to St. Louis hitting its population peak of 856,000. The plan outlined a future for a flourishing St. Louis and called on city developers to address an anticipated population of 900,000 by 1970. Bartholomew’s blight designations bulldozed entire blocks and neighborhoods, namely Mill Creek Valley, displacing primarily Black residents in the name of urban renewal — an all-too-common story in cities across the U.S.

Leaders built and remade roads for an imagined city, one that is not present-day St. Louis. They lacked vision for the present, and their actions aided patterns of white flight and disinvestment in inner-city neighborhoods.

Seventy-seven years later, Kari Bell waits for her daughter, Lyrik, on the threshold of a vacated building at the corner of Meramec and Louisiana in Dutchtown. Bright yellow school buses parade up and down south city at this hour, and one eventually stops at the

corner. Bell takes her daughter’s hand as she steps off the bus and crosses the intersection to walk home.

This particular intersection hosts one of the calming traffic circles, which resembles a double-tiered birthday cake. Bell says she’s grateful for the infrastructure because it “makes drivers pay attention.” They’ve lived in the neighborhood since October, and though sounds of tire treads and engines revving puncture the air, she hasn’t seen any accidents.

Cindy Mense, CEO of Trailnet, St. Louis’ nonprofit dedicated to making streets safer for bikers and walkers, emphasizes the need for traffic-calming efforts to protect children, who are often below the line of sight of today’s oversized trucks and SUVs. These measures are necessary to shield children walking from school or the bus stop, like Lyrik, who wants to be a writer and is already working on her first novel.

According to the U.S. Department of Transportation, today’s vehicles are safer than ever for passengers, and average models have only grown in size. But for foot-traffickers, whether walking to work or to the bus stop, not much stands in the way to provide safety. This is the theory behind traffic-calming infrastructure. Cars, including police cruisers, need a permanent reason to slow down.

Trailnet has been the primary community advocate for traffic-calming infrastructure for the past 30 years. But they say their biggest obstacle isn’t our overly wide streets.

Public opinion shapes the formation of our cities. It created the St. Louis we see today and will continue to form what becomes of our city. For Trailnet, public opinion is both the biggest obstacle and the biggest reward.

Pushback for the Louisiana Avenue Calm Streets Projects has focused on vehicles running into the traffic circle — which has happened more than is ideal. Yet Mense points out the tradeoff: “What if that was a person? What if that was a child on a bike?” Next time, the driver might slow down.

Citizen voices and opinions help to

create St. Louis’ future. Currently, the city actively seeks citizen input in the Strategic Land Use Plan, which will authorize and guide future physical development in the city. The plan faces its first comprehensive update since 2005, with policy changes, redevelopment strategies and zoning ordinances at stake.

The city is already putting some money into traffic calming. Last year’s Board Bill 120, championed by Mayor Tishaura Jones after some high-profile fatalities on South Grand and other city streets, promises a portion of ARPA funds for safety improvements, traffic calming and sidewalk improvements, as well as updated 911 software.

Mense wants St. Louis residents to contemplate a vision for a community that engages neighbors, builds community and helps all residents feel safe, while accounting for the rich diversity of our city. This includes the range of modes people rely on to get from place to place: foot, wheelchair, bike, bus, Metro, car and more.

“In this region, we are not going to move forward if we don’t take everybody

with us,” Mense advises. She references people who may not own a car and need to use public transport, as well as people with disabilities who need accessible sidewalks. “The transportation system has to be built to support all of these options so that everybody gets a chance to get around, to get to their jobs, and to meet their daily needs.”

Post-pandemic trends revealed increases in reckless driving across the country, particularly marked by the uptick in motor vehicle traffic fatalities. But early reports from U.S. DOT indicate a slight decline in fatality rates in 2023.

While St. Louis drivers may still be notoriously fast, productive change conversely occurs at a notoriously slow rate — a necessary reminder to fully understand traffic-calming initiatives.

That’s something Harris, the postal carrier, recognizes. He’s not counting on drivers to stop speeding on Louisiana overnight, even with the new calming infrastructure components. Walking as he does at just a few miles per hour, he’s hoping to see change in five years. Maybe even 10. CG

Cyclists ride by a traffic-calming device at the intersection of South Spring Avenue and Russell Boulevard.