Written by:
Gretchen Lee
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this Issue of Curve:
11 #1
Get ready for a wild weekend in the city that just keeps rolling on the river.
So you say you’re ready for a road trip to St. Louis. A bad-girl road trip, the kind that has you rolling into town just in time to hit the bars. You want to know what it’s like to balance truck-stop coffee in one hand and open the sunroof with the other at 70 miles per hour — singing old disco at the top of your lungs. You want to eat late-night doughnuts and rise at noon just like a rock star. And when the weekend’s over, you’ll pull on your shades, toss back a couple of aspirin, and hit the open road again — content to return to work knowing that you have had an adventure, or two or three.
First, find a cheap place to crash. If you aren’t sleeping on someone’s couch, try to find a nice motel somewhere along the I-44 corridor. You’ll be spending most of your time cruising the south side of town, because that’s where the girls are. Once you can find Grand Avenue, you’re set for the weekend.
Too bad they tore down the Coral Courts motel to make way for civic progress in the late 1990s. Built in St. Louis along old Route 66 in 1941, the Courts was a true “no-tell motel.” Just the kind of place that Jane Jetson and Mrs. Spacely might have chosen for an afternoon rendezvous. Each sleek, art-deco cottage had its own attached garage and it was rumored to be a favorite tryst-spot for gangsters who didn’t want nosy federal agents checking their license plates.
As you cruise down South Grand Avenue from the highway, take a deep breath. That’s beer you smell, and hops, and yeast, depending on what time of night you happen to be passing by. This is Anheuser-Busch territory, and St. Louisans are mighty loyal to their Bud Light. Of course, a number of microbrews have popped up since the 1980s, when the market first opened up to specialty beers. Most of the gay bars here also sell Schlafly beer, produced locally by people who are related somehow to Phyllis Schlafly. (Yes, that Phyllis Schlafly, the conservative maven who brought Concerned Women for America to prominence in the 1980s.)
At the corner of Arsenal and Grand sits MoKaBe’s coffeehouse — a smoky place with killer hot chocolate and butchy tattooed clerks behind the counter. Tower Grove Park, directly across the street, is the heart of the South Grand neighborhood. Gay men and lesbians were drawn to this part of town by the low rents and affordable real estate of the 1980s and ’90s. Now, 10 years later, the area has blossomed with a wide range of ethnicities represented along the “main drag” of commercial properties along Grand.
If you’re there during the day, check out Planet Proud Books and Gifts (3194 S. Grand Blvd.) — the heir apparent to the now-defunct Our World Bookstore crowd. Cheap Trx (3211 S. Grand Blvd.) is a must-see as well — what started out more than 10 years ago as a funky gift shop and coffee bar has morphed into a piercing parlor today.
Make a mental note of the cheap eats along this stretch of road. In addition to MoKaBe’s (which cooks up a great vegetarian brunch on the weekends), there’s The Buttery (3659 S. Grand Blvd.), a dive of a greasy-spoon diner that offers breakfast 24 hours a day; Pho Grand (3195 S. Grand), a Vietnamese place with big bowls of noodles from $3.95 on up; and Mangia Italiano (3145 S. Grand Blvd.), with under-$10 homemade pasta and jazz on Fridays and Saturdays.
But you’re here for the nightlife, right? And when it comes to women’s bars, it really boils down to two establishments located within stumbling distance of one another. Attitudes (4100 Manchester Ave.) has been around longer, having broken ground years ago in what was once a much dicier neighborhood. Go there early on a Friday night if you’ve a hankering for a little two-step. Novak’s (4146 Manchester Ave.) is the new girl on the block, with live music most weekends and a long wall filled from top to bottom with high-school yearbook shots, prom pictures and other fun photos of the regular clientele.
When it’s closing time in St. Louis, you’ll still hear the bartender call out, “You don’t have to go home, but you can’t stay here.” And that’s true, of course. So if you’re not quite ready to hit the hay, and you don’t want to cross the river for the drag show at boy-bar Faces Dance Club and Cabaret (130 4th St. in East St. Louis, Ill.), where the liquor flows well past 3 a.m., cruise on over to the South City Diner (3141 S. Grand Blvd.), where the service is often slow, but it’s worth the wait. Or settle into a booth at Uncle Bill’s Pancake and Dinner House (3427 S. Kingshighway), where the line sometimes snakes into the parking lot when the after-bar crowd starts to filter in.
Sleep? Who needs it? You’re living large — for a weekend, at least.
If You Go:
St. Louisans are partial to certain types of food known nowhere else on the planet. Among these are “toasted ravs.” That’s meat-filled ravioli, breaded and deep-fried until golden brown and crispy, then topped with marinara sauce and a light dusting of parmesan cheese. Most accounts attribute the creation of toasted ravs to an unnamed cook at Rigazzi’s, a landmark spot in St. Louis’ Italian neighborhood, a part of town also known simply as “The Hill.” The story is that a cook there accidentally dropped a fresh ravioli into the deep fryer at the restaurant. He fished it out, had a taste, and the unusual treat has been on the menu ever since. Now almost every restaurant in town serves toasted ravs, from fancy sit-down places to the most simple corner taverns.
If it’s early enough in the evening, head on over to Ted Drewe’s Frozen Custard (6726 Chippewa Ave.) and ask for a “concrete” — that’s a cupful of ice cream so thick you can turn the entire thing upside down and you won’t spill a drop. You’ll have to wait in line, of course. But that just gives you more time to decide what you want mixed in with your concrete. My favorite? The “Cardinal Sin,” with plump, sweet cherries and rich chocolate sauce. One is big enough to share. And if you want to look like a native, don’t drive off after you get your order. It’s de rigeur to sit on the hood of your car or perch daintily on the bumper while you eat.
Another not-to-be-missed, late-night delicacy is the sliders at White Castle (multiple locations). Sliders, for the uninitiated, are slippery tiny hamburgers served steaming hot with grilled onions on a baby-sized bun. Remember the movie White Palace, where Susan Sarandon played a floozy waitress who has an affair with a snotty advertising exec? St. Louis writer Glenn Savan wanted White Castle as his setting, but the restaurant said no, so he had to pick a clever alternative title instead. Go through the drive-through only if you’re in a hurry. No matter what the hour, it’s a treat to balance on one of the efficient barstools and surreptitiously watch as your fellow diners enjoy their dinner. Almost every type of person stops in for a slider at some time or another. And it’s not at all unusual after-hours to encounter much of the same crowd you just left at the bar squeezed into the many shiny booths.
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