What's St. Louis, MO like?

In My Humble Opinion
21

Good Lord, I’d say so.

I attended a convention in St. Louis in 2006. Keep in mind, this was at the very peak of the bubble economy.

The hotel and convention center were both in downtown St. Louis, about half a mile apart.

Walking from the hotel to the convention center was downright eerie. It was like a ghost town. No traffic, no business, nothing. On a week day. Only around the stadium was there anything approaching even moderate urban activity.

If you ever want to film a post-apocalyptic city, I heartily recommend St. Louis.

That said, It’s a nice downtown. It’s just so damn empty.

22

The school system of the city of St. Louis is commonly regarded as horrid. It sounds like the OP has no wife/kids, so that isn’t an immediate issue.

Typically though, when youngsters in the city pair off and get married they start thinking about getting out of the city and into the county (suburbs.) Unless they can afford private schooling.

As for their being a rivalry between St. Louis and Kansas City, nah, not so much. Their sports teams are in different leagues, so there are rarely Royals/Cards match-ups or Rams/Chiefs match-ups.

The actual rivalry is St. Louis/Chicago. When the Cards and Cubbies play thousands of people use it as an excuse to visit the other city for a day or two. The distance is about 300 miles and easily drivable. Kansas City is only slightly closer, and doesn’t offer as much as Chicago.

23

I didn’t talk about Chuck Berry and similar because I saw you mentioned it on preview. And yeah I forgot some other stuff but hey I was exhausted last night, cut me some slack. I’ve walked over the walk of fame on Delmar many, many, many times but guess last night I was struck by a brain fart.

I’ve only noticed any STL/KC rivalry while I attended Mizzou. Lots of the students would argue about which city was better. But I never hear about it here. It’s all about the Cards/Cubs. Who we are currently whooping ass on.

24

Chicago and St Louis have more of a rivalry historically because until the 1950s St Louis was a major city and gave Chicago a run for its money. Of course that argument was long settled but even just 50 years earlier St Louis was strong enough to take the Olympics away from Chicago. (Yeah I realize the Olympics was no big deal then, but it still shows you)

The coming of railroads after the Civil War shifted the industry and trade to Chicago, but St Louis still was highly competitive as the point west with Chicago.

After around 1950 St Louis fell out of the “first tier cities” (like Cleveland, Baltimore and Buffalo) the rivalry with Kansas City became more obvious.

25

Yes, leaving aside the lack of variety, the lack of attention to shelf dates, the beat up, bruised, and cut fresh fruit and vegetables, the poor quality of the fresh meat, the attitudes of the managers, the horrible “store-baked” bread, and the virtually non-existent food with actual spice in it, there is, indeed, nothing wrong with Dierberg’s or Schnuck’s.

I’ll accept that I’m perhaps missing good restaurants; I am in the suburbs. Every restaurant I’ve been to out here (and I generally avoid chains) has been bland, bland, bland. When you ask a Mexican place to make your meal spicy, and they bring you a bottle of Tabasco with the food, you know you’re in the wrong place.

26

There are a few places in West County that I enjoy occasionally, but you’re really just not going to find all that much interesting in Creve Coeur (or, really, anywhere in the County).

But there are come excellent places in the city. If you’re interested in recommendations, PM me.

27

As a former St. Louis resident who still has family there and considers it as much a home as anywhere, I’ll offer a, uh, counterpoint to Frank’s point.

The weather has very defined seasons. Thankfully, they’re all fairly short. I’d rather have the 3 months of each instead of the seemingly endless winter I endured here in Wisconsin, but obviously it’s subjective. It’s not that much warmer than Columbus in the summer and a little less cold in the wintertime.

Frank doesn’t like the grocery stores, but I guess I’m not as picky. Dierbergs is the top-tier grocery store. Schnucks is one level below, and slightly cheaper. When I lived in Brentwood, in the middle of St. Louis County, I was only 5-10 minutes from a Dierbergs, a Schnucks, an Aldi, a Whole Foods, a Trader Joe’s and a Wild Oats. And there are other boutique delis and markets in the city and the county.

Being relatively poor and having two young kids, I don’t know much about the art of fine cuisine, but I never had any complaints about the restaurants. I will agree that St. Louis-style pizza (Imo’s) is best left alone. Try it once, I guess; maybe you’ll think it’s great. I think it’s Velveeta on cardboard.

I don’t think the bookstores or the library systems suck. Maybe compared to Powell’s in Portland they do.

Traffic is a problem. They’re almost done rebuilding Highway 40 (I-64, though no one calls it that) through the heart of the county. There is a good train system (MetroLink) and buses, but the service on both was cut back severely thanks to a sales tax increase that was voted down.

Yeah, local TV news sucks. I’m not aware of any city in the U.S. where it doesn’t. And the Post-Dispatch, the newspaper, is on thin ice financially and is a shadow of its former self, but again, most newspapers are in the same boat.

If you don’t have kids and aren’t worried about the schools, there are neighborhoods in the city like the Central West End and the area around Tower Grove Park that are just as good as the suburbs. If you get so far as to start scouting out neighborhoods, start another thread and we can all talk about how much whichever part of St. Louis we’re from is the one you should live in and the others are hellish ghettos that spend most of their time on fire.

(Nothing personal, BTW, Frank. I can understand how you can come to hate a place – I’m having a REAL hard time getting to like Madison – but I think you painted St. Louis to be a lot worse than it is.)

28

Having lived here for most of my life, I completely agree with everything every other poster has said.

There’s no argument about the weather – we have a classic “four season” climate: insufferably hot in the summer, miserably cold in the winter.

For everything else, it depends on how old you are and what you’re used to. I think St. Louis is superior to Columbus in every category except for college sports.

St. Louis is a city of neighborhoods. Some of them are new and shiny, some are older and lovingly maintained, some old and gentrified, some funky and some are flat-out dangerous. In general, I’d recommend taking Highway 40 – excuse me, I-64 – all the way from the Mississippi River out to the Missouri River, and looking no more than 3 miles on either side of it. You’ll see pretty much everything (good or bad) that makes up St. Louis.

As for culture, we have a world-class symphony and pretty good jazz. Our theater scene is a step below Chicago, but it’s very good regional theater. St. Louis is a regular stop on most rock tours.

Entertainment tends to be more family oriented and mainstream. There are small pockets of edgier stuff, but you have to seek it out.

The cost of living is very reasonable for a large city. On the other hand, my son lives in Chicago, and when he visited last month, he was shocked at how the recession had devastated the area compared with his perception of Chicago. Of course that could mean you’ll get a great deal on housing.

For great restaurants, there’s the Hill neighborhood in south st. Louis. You can’t throw a rock without hitting a great, family owned, Italian restaurant. That doesn’t explain our love for frozen custard - that’s just a bonus.

I find Schnuck’s and Dierberg’s to be more than adequate for most of my shopping needs. It’s true that there isn’t really a first-class local bookstore, but there are several good niche bookstores.

Compared to a lot of cities, talk radio here is very good. Sure, the biggest station in town has Rush, but it also has the well-informed Charles Brennan, and another station has the veteran Charles Jaco, who’s as close to an anti-Rush as anyone in America.

Finally, the scenery here is really quite nice for the Midwest.

29

Mexican? Seriously? Maybe you’ve just chosen a poor example restaurant here, but… you’re expecting great Mexican food in the Midwest? That’s sort of like expecting great seafood in the Midwest. Possible, but… unlikely.

There are great restaurants here, but not in every cuisine, to be sure. Italian, BBQ, steak joints, several other ethnic cuisines: all good.

I don’t have any recommendations on Mexican food here; I find the Americanized versions rather vile and greasy, even in places like Houston or San Antonio or Cali, where I’d expect better.

30

Hi Frank, if I remember right, we’re essentially neighbors. I live near Olive and I-270.

Your take on Schnuck’s and Dierberg’s does not match my experience. The ones I go to are clean and attractive, have good prices and good selection. The people are cheerful and helpful, and the stores re-model frequently. I don’t see expired food on the shelves. The store-baked bread isn’t as good as Panera’s, but isn’t horrible. The meat departments are just fine.

No, there isn’t a lot of spicy pre-prepared food.

As for your “beat up, bruised, and cut fresh fruit and vegetables”… I don’t even know what to say. If anything the produce is too damn perfect and, in standard American supermarket tradition, appearance trumps flavor. But you can get organically grown produce at fair prices.

As for county restaurants… I’ve out of touch, due to a lack of disposable income. But it used to be that Spiro’s had nice Greek food.
Tachi Bana’s had good–very inexpensive–Japanese food.
The Summer Palace had a fine Chinese menu.
Culpepper’s wings and bar food were good.
La Bonne Bouche had great pastries.

Tucker’s (in Manchester) was a good cheap steakhouse.
Annie Gunn’s (as has been pointed out) was wonderful but pretty steep.
I’ve heard good things about Il Belagio (I’m probably misspelling many of these names.) Again, expensive.
The best Mexican I’ve had recently was at Senor Pique on Manchester.
There are several good Thai restaurants near Creve Couer.

31

Don’t forget KTRS (550 AM) has the Cardinals and the indescribable but addictive Frank O. Pinion show.

32

And there’s a brand new Schnucks downtown across from The Old Post Office, just 2 blocks from where I live! It is excellent! Live music on Fridays and Saturdays, wine tastings on Tuesdays and Thursdays, wonderful produce, deli and wine shop…and, did I mention that it’s only 2 blocks away? Sweet!

33

Also, Washington Ave. contains a number of excellent restaurants: Over/Under, The Dubliner, Mosaic, Kitchen K, Mizu, Wasabit, Nara Cafe and Hookah Lounge and Sen Thai (some of the best Thai food I’ve ever had.)

Grand Center abounds with about any kind of culture you could imagine…Fabulous Fox, anyone?

If you can’t find something wonderful to do hear, you’re just not trying! Enjoy!

34

If you’re looking for some ethnic food (Thai, Ethiopian, Greek etc…) South Grand Blvd. (south of I-64) has some great little places.

Also if you are wanting some bbq try Pappy’s Smokehouse near Olive and Compton. Best bbq in the city, and the best ribs I have ever had. If I’m not mistaken they won the “Memphis in May” world bbq championships in '01. Get there early as lines form from open until close.

35

Unlikely, as they’ve only been around since 2008, as far as I know. At least, they won RFT’s Best New Restaurant in 2008.

36

I can’t readily find a list of previous winners, but Retro could be thinking of a couple of things: the legendary Mike Mills has opened a 17th Street Bar & Grill location over in O’Fallon, IL–he’s a multi-time winner at Memphis, or possibly the guys at Pappy’s won when they were cooking for Super Smokers (IIRC, some of the Pappy’s crew are former Super Smokers guys).

If you like musicals, the Muny and Fox are GREAT venues. The free Shakespeare in the Park is always good, the zoo is great, the art museum is actually pretty good, and the park systems in and around St. Louis are second to none. The urban and suburban parks are generally very pleasant and well-kept, and there are plenty of them. Several great state parks for camping, hiking, RVing, canoeing/kayaking (a lot of slovenly drunkards like to float in tubes with hundreds of jello shots on their laps at times like Memorial Day, though). There’s a new downtown sculpture park, there’s Laumeier sculpture park in south St. Louis County.

It sounds like the OP might be interested in the Central West End. Good restaurants, concert venues (the Pageant has long been one of my favorite venues–next couple of months I’m seeing They Might Be Giants, Mastodon and Dethklok, have to miss The Mars Volta, Dinosaur Jr. and Built to Spill), and the CWE is very close to the MetroLink light rail that will take you to Brentwood or downtown.

My impression of St. Louis, since moving here 8 years ago, is that if you live in the county and keep everything at arm’s length, it really sucks. Isolated, bland, and unpleasant. If you look around and take the time to find out what’s really here, and especially if you can live close to or IN the city, there’s some great stuff and it’s a perfectly pleasant place to live. It helps if you find the right group of people, too. Most of my friends are non-native St. Louisans. People who grew up here tend to ask “Where did you go to high school” when you first meet them. This isn’t friendly banter, it’s a (not-so-)subtle way of judging your socio-economic background and deciding in an instant whether you’re worth talking to. It’s really irritating.

But intellectually, culturally, physically…I find plenty to do to keep occupied with happy activities. We don’t get nearly as many good rock concerts as I would like, but that’s almost the only complaint I have. Sure, other places are bigger and better, but there’s always somewhere bigger and better.

37

Because of the city/county government split, it’s possible to live in St. Louis County and NEVER go into the city for anything in your entire life. That includes school, shopping, work, reporting for jury duty, etc. Likewise, you can live in the city and never go into the county.

This can create an insularity, but as a county-dweller, I disagree with the “isolated, bland and unpleasant” comment. True, St. Louis has its share of anonymous, faceless suburbs, but it also has a healthy assortment of charming communities, as well.

**troub **is right about the “where did you go to high school” thing, though. In fact, a long-time judge in the city once jokingly invented the “out of town high school interpolation factor” so non-natives could convert their hometown high school into its St. Louis counterpart.

38

It’s the reason people say St. Louis is “like a small town” – they’re wondering if you know the right people.

If you’re one of the “right people”, though, it’s an advantage in much the same way as being a WASP in the U.S. is an advantage. I roll my eyes when asked about something that’s decades in my past as though it were relevant… but it’s undeniably been advantageous to me having been able to prove I’m of the correct caste.

Outsiders should mention if they went to a private (espc. Catholic) school, otherwise just sub in your college, if any. No one will bat an eye at that.

39

I agree with this. I live in the Loop area (husband is a WashU grad student), and there are plenty of good restaurants around. Blueberry Hill, Riddle’s Penultimate, lots of places in the Central West End. But yeah, if you stay out in the suburbs, the restaurants aren’t as good - IME, they’re not necessarily chains, but the quality isn’t much different.

I like St. Louis. I don’t want to live here permanantly, I’m a New England girl at heart, but there’s plenty of stuff to do, and a lot of it’s either free or very low cost, like the zoo or the art museum. Moving here after living in Boston for 6 years, I think that was the biggest culture shock - how much cheaper everything is.

The “where did you go to high school?” thing is pretty funny. My husband is from here originally, so gets asked that fairly often.

I don’t find the big chain grocery stores to be any different from anywhere else, but honestly I don’t use them that much, either. We get most of our veggies from the Soulard Farmers Market, and do well there - though it’s a mixed bag whether the vendor your buying from actually got the fruit from their farm, or whether it fell off the back of a Schnuck’s truck! It’s pretty easy to tell the difference, though. Meat comes from John’s Butcher Shoppee (yes, it’s really spelled like that).

ETA: as for St. Louis style pizza, the only people I know who like it are from here, and not everyone who’s from here likes it. It’s a wonder Imo’s stays in business. And I could do without the humid summers, though this summer the weather has mostly been fabulous and not nearly as humid as usual. The winters aren’t bad, but I’m from New England so I’m used to it being colder. The fall & spring are usually nice.

40

I used to work at Imo’s Pizza for years in high school, the quintessential location for St. Louis style pizza delivery, and we were always very, very busy. Contrary to this thread, a LOT of people love provel cheese and I am one of them. Don’t care what you all think, it’s good. There are like 60 in the greater STL area and also more in Columbia, Cape, Springfield, Union, Troy, the Ozarks, KC, and IL.

But there is plenty of non Imo’s like pizza as well, Il Vicino, Dewey’s, Black Thorn, etc.