Feature

BAR BONES

Searching for new life in south city’s failed gin joints, dried-up watering holes and maybe, possibly available bars

By the time I taught my last class at Webster University in the summer of 2014, my burnout level had achieved an advanced stage. I was that French fry at the bottom of the container, a once-robust potato product now reduced to a sliver of darkened, crispy mystery. Somewhere in the course of seventeen years, things had gone very wrong, and it was time to change things up. That interior renewal came in the form of an email received earlier that year, as a civically well-connected neighbor told me of a bar that would be for sale soon, located on the corner of Magnolia and Arkansas avenues. The place had long intrigued me, having been a longtime programmer at KDHX, which was then just a stone’s throw from the tavern. Before the place shut down in 1994, I slipped in a few times before an on-air shift and could well remember the basics of the place: a darkened tavern with a wooden hood over the backbar, a pool table on the small mezzanine level and an orange glow throughout. A basic workingman’s vibe was the memory, with the feeling of a spot that was well geared toward regulars and not young tourists.

Since bussing tables as a teen at O’Connell’s Pub in the 1980s, I’d spotted in bar and restaurant work alongside journalism and teaching. Once the latter “career” hit the end days by 2014, the appeal of a locked-away bar seven blocks from my house was too much. A small team was assembled, a pair of buildings were bought by one of the team members, and the spot opened after what felt like a forever wait of eight months. And only then did the real education in operating a bar begin. And it never let up.

With the last call of December 31, 2019, I planned to slide into a role at another bar being brought back from the dead in south city — this time as a manager rather than a co-owner. The idea was to open that place, then move on as operator to yet another dead bar, conveniently located next door. Dismissed from said project(s) about 75 minutes before signing HR paperwork, I began a nearly immediate, sometimes spastic search to find a new spot to hang my hat.

As any garden variety, lifechanging experience can go, I’ve spent most of 2020 in a combination of excitement, education and anxiety; my factory setting comes with a default to over analysis. So, a quarter of the time, I long for my own space, while another quarter is wondering if I should just take on a job-job with another operation. The rest of my brain is an equal split between moving to New Orleans or wishing for a crack in the earth to emerge under my feet, delivering me to the nearest corner bar in the netherworld. Honestly, after touring well over a dozen buildings, researching as many more, coldcalling places, adapting thoughts on the ȵy and talNing to potential investors, pop-up chefs and the generally curious, I’m kinda open to any of those four outcomes.

What follows is part travelogue, part nostalgia trip, part social experiment, part actual search for the perfect Yenue within the confines of the south side, from Highway 44 to the city limits, from South Broadway to Hampton Avenue.

In this process, I’ve realized that as a south citian for the majority of my life, now a full three decades into being a legal-aged drinker, I’ve hit a lot of places over the years. A lot.

STATE STREET BLUES Driving around offers a weird memory mix. There’s an electric company on Arsenal Street, out Continued on pg 14

near the city limits, found in a little corner space. It used to be a bar called :aYes. :hy , can’t find my keys on a given morning but know this bit of trivia, I cannot say. There’s an intersection near my house, at Wyoming Street and Pennsylvania Avenue, where four corner bars were said to exist. In the 1990s I visited two of them (Corcoran’s and Miss Blues), and by then a third was shuttered, with signage still in the window. How can a city resident/fan not think about what the world was like when a single corner held that many saloons? And, once upon a time, there was a bar called Dave’s Den, somewhere in what’s now the 20th Ward, which featured an entire bar full of clown art. This doesn’t feel liNe a figment of the imagination, though , can’t find any quick proof it existed.

Driving the streets, the bars keep coming. There’s the old Frederick’s Music Lounge. Bernard’s Pub. The Foundry. Mom Pop’s. Big Drink #1. Space. Rock Island. Sandrina’s. $03. <our %ar. 7he 2ffice. Club Paladora. The Other Place. Frank’s First Alarm. Little Gam’s. The Blue Pearl. Somer’s. Mary’s Fine Food. The Double Bogey. And dozens more. It’s not a small list, with some empty and abandoned, some adapted into new uses, some ȵattened. 7o driYe, biNe or walN by them is to have a little shock of recognition, of a memorable night somewhere along the line.

YEBBIT, YEBBIT, YEBBIT When Mike Martz was the head coach of the St. Louis Rams, one of his more memorable press conferences had him dueling with the media, with Martz saying “yebbit, yebbit, yebbit” in response to repetitive questions, a play on the phrase “yeah, but.” For a lot of intents and purposes, the phrase “yeah, but” could be applied to any situation involving development in St. Louis. The phrase is almost a constant when it comes to businesses involving food, drink and nightlife.

Top Golf is considering a facility in midtown? “Yeah, but there’ll be light pollution.” The Foundry’s going to open? “Yeah, but it’ll just pull people from other, already operating locations.” There are some interesting bars for sale on Gravois? “Yeah, but cars travel too fast down that road, and no one would ever stop for a drink there.” Too much parking, a lack of parking, poor signage, a downTop: Work seems to be underway at what was Scott’s, near O Broadway. Above: A taxidermied occupant oversee the Outpost.

ward trajectory of a neighborhood, the presence of a rough or racist clientele — all of these things and more can cause stress and second guessing. (Let’s call it stress-guessing.)

Let’s loop back to Gravois Avenue. Three St. Louis taverns were featured in 2016 on Bar Rescue, one of the barrel-scraping reality shows of recent vintage, and one of the taverns would be renamed The Beechwood. It’s an impressive space, really, on the edge of Fox Park on Gravois. Going through the space, what is obvious is the cleanliness of it and the sheer size. There is a main barroom, a secondary bar behind a set of doors and a third bar in the basement. The show’s refurbishing of the rooms left a larger-than-normal kitchen, seating for dozens, large walk-ins for both food and drink ... essentially, all the elements are in place. The “pro” side of the ledger felt fantastic, but a good-sized lease number had to be balanced against the hopes of a daily draw. Toward the end, The Beechwood (closed for a couple years, save for a short-lived relaunch under new management in 2019) was like a lot of its south side kin: a day bar for the workingman. There are plenty of those types in and around south city. But this one’s bigger than most, brighter than most, newer than most. The systems, the barstools, the parking lot. So much tipping the “pro” side of the ledger that it sounds like someone is going to bite on a good opportunity.

My own internal “yebbit” was calling out. Gravois isn’t a walking block. Is the clientele from the nearby NexCore co-working space enough to provide a base of regulars? Can a bar so decorated in, quite literally, beechwood provide a more relaxed feel?

Sometimes you can’t help but have “yebbit” in your brain. It’s a St. Louis thing, doncha know?

LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION Blessed be the young, but there was a time when the Grove wasn’t the Grove. Your time travel machine doesn’t need to go back much further than the turn of the century, or more specifically, the arrival of Atomic Cowboy. Once it arrived, an opening up of the street’s underground bar culture began in earnest. The LGBTQ bars — which once existed amidst empty storefronts, social service agencies and light industry —

Fat Richies is now the home bar for the tavern’s homeowners.

Bob & Patti’s No Wake Zone on South Broadway was a great bar while it lasted.

started getting new neighbors, bolstered streetscapes, enhanced nearby housing and a big old sign across the middle of the street.

A piece of well-intentioned wisdom often offered when looking for a space is this: “Find the next upcoming area.” There’s sense in that, but every developer worth their salt is on the same hunt, and there can be wide differences of opinion regarding “what’s next.” A couple of years back, in fact, this writer and publication took a stab at exactly that kind of sleuthing, with a February 2017 piece titled “Could a Long-Neglected Stretch of South Broadway Become St. Louis’ Next Nightlife Zone?” With three years in the booNs, an affirmatiYe isn’t there yet. Since publication, Kickers Corner ceased operations, and a bar alternately called Fro’s and Crossbones has re-opened, closed again, re-reopened and closed. Other bars in the neighborhood never found an exact way to combine efforts or bring a zone-wide approach to labeling, understandable in some respects, what with a quirky mix of LGBTQ, biker, blue collar and hipster outlets.

That said, the potential still feels like it’s there. An example: A Budweiser sign hangs on the southwest corner of South Broadway and Loughborough. A boarded-up building of some size suggests that a bar held this corner once, and so it did. Bob & Patti’s No Wake Zone was there in the earliest days of the 2000s, and it was a great bar. A bit of a fishing theme. $ multistorefront ȵoorplan. $nd, interestingly enough, a cleanliness that would challenge your average white-tablecloth eatery. Add in the cheap drinks, and it was enough to make it a destination bar for a while, a classic St. Louis tavern that called it a day before some regulars were ready to let it go.

These days it sits in amber. Another bar nearby has control, and within the ne[t fiYe years, it’ll be transitioned into a concept far different from Bob & Patti’s. For those of us on the search, though, there’s no reason not to cry a tear, maybe two, on every pass. Speaking of past RFT stories ...

THIS MUST BE THE PLACE Nearly a dozen years ago, in December 2008, the RFT’s Chad Garrison wrote a cover piece, “Alton &onfidential,ȋ about the bars of Alton, Illinois, in which the author quietly patronized the bars there, detailing the wild-and-woolly vibe of taverns in that river town during a Yery specific and transitioning) moment in time. In some respects, that story glimpsed the last days of a certain type of bawdy bar entertainment, highlighted by the age-old “tits for tips” strategy of a specific type of mi[ologist. Today, some of the story’s details hold up, as you can still openly smoke in many a bar after being asked if you’d like the poor man’s ashtray: a plastic cup with a quarterfill of water.

The days of a house full of braying jackasses encouraging a bartender to ȵash ’em for dollar bills is essentially a thing of the past,

though you can still find an occasional burst of it at a particular pub or two. Alton’s bar scene is still full of quirks and surprises. But it’s not as if that was a trend ever limited to one town on one side of the river. In south city, you find the same unicorns, especially in the isolated, tucked-away-inneighborhood-type bar situations. ,t was a surprise to recently find a place (which we’ll call the maybemaybe-not-for-sale Bar X) that had both on- and off-duty bartenders ȵashing with abandon in the middle of the day, in a barroom with major windows and lights turned all the way up. Even through the haze of smoke, the impromptu show was visible from any angle and only began after it was cleared that a new visitor wasn’t a cop. Speaking of legalities ... that smoking component? Despite the city ordinance nixing indoor smoking in most venues, there’s no adherence to the rules in a large swath of the south side’s laidback watering holes. An example (which we’ll call the also-maybe-for-lease Bar W): Ten of the bar’s eleven patrons were actively smoking during the span of a one-Budweiser visit.

The culture of a particular bar is a Yery specific thing. $re there sports on the TV, and do people care about said sports, or are they simply an expected social lubricant? Is there a patio that needs tending, lest it be overrun by the wacky tobaccy crowd? Is there a jukebox, because at some point in time, there’s going to be a six-song run of “Who Let the Dogs Out?” in all your customers’ ears. (True story.) Are you going to be the one bar in south city with ȵashing staff"

AN EMPTY CUP Just west of the intersection of Bates Street and Virginia Avenue sits a small, single-room bar called the Tin Cup, which as the name indicates, has a theme that’s evidently (but only lightly) tied to golf. It was recently for sale at a very reasonable price, settling in at roughly $130,000. The property is neat and trim, with an ample secondȵoor apartment, a staple of south-city bars and an income stream that immediately reduces the bar’s need to produce at peak. Behind a wooden fence sits a patio that, if located in Soulard, would be filled and profitable for a good seven months of the year.

But the bar is not located in Soulard. Instead, it’s in the Mt. Pleasant neighborhood, a quirky area that’s in need of a generalized sense of marketing and enthusiasm. And, perhaps, some anchor, destination tenants. One was located near the Continued on pg 16

A for-sale sign hangs at South Broadway’s old e Foundry Pub.

BAR BONES Continued from pg 15

Tin Cup, when the Iron Barley was open within 50 yards of the front door. When that operation moved to High Ridge, a palpable sense of energy left the block. That leaves the Tin Cup by itself, a functional space that caters to a specific type of drinker.

There are days when the TV is on and the patrons aren’t focused on it. When they do, it’s to comment on the news, with social conversation that tends toward the, erm, conservative. The customers also seem to spend a good amount of their day watching the comings and goings of the gas station next door, which provides for a lot of commentary; the reputation of the place, home to occasional shooting or civil disturbance, gives some validity to the daily, live-time viewing. The dual doors at the front of the building, which you sort of shimmy through, lead to a buzzer, a feature that is found in several bars through this part of town. It’s a time capsule of sorts, though it’s hard to peg the exact date that time stopped here.

The Tin Cup was seemingly sold during the process. It was a true turnkey. But its buzzer shall belong to another.

PEAK CURATION It’s no knock on the new Grove enterprise, but Takashima Records might be the most curated to arrive on the local scene in a minute. The look ’n’ feel, the centrality of vinyl albums to the same, the affiliated record label, the notion that cooks and DJs and bartenders would be actively collaborating on shift — well, it’s a lot to take in. In south city, there are bars that haven’t changed much since the day they were opened, with decorations measured in the decade. If you have a plastic Spuds McKenzie, you treasure it. You don’t even dream of selling it, not even if someone’s waving a mini-stack of fiYe  bills around. ,f you haYe a scrolling Miller Lite sign, the imagery of cities and deserts slowly turning into infinity, you Neep it, too. If you have a lava lamp under

e Outpost on South Jeerson is being outfitted with antiques and taxidermy.

South city bars include years of untouched history, but they’re still products of curation.

an eighth-inch of dust, but it’s serving that purpose, you keep it.

Every bar is a product of curation, even those tucked away behind locked doors in strange pockets of town. The Round House, a bar not far from the Beechwood, is an example of that. It’s got a simple interior, last updated, one would guess, around the turn of the century. For years, the Round House sat vacant, newspapers lining the street-facing windows. To see listings with photos of the interior, to actually see the 2pen sign ȵipped, are real mindbenders. What’s next is figuring out if you should change any of that or let it ride.

The drinks you serve (or “beverage program” if you must) is another component of all this curation. Plenty of south side spots exist with AB products as the bedrock of their offerings, with options like Blue Moon and Sam Adams as their wildest craft outliers. %ut is it possible to ȵip on the lights under new ownership these days without a decent draft selection, without at least a half-dozen local options? Perhaps in the real tucked-away spots you could rock that AB for the rest of the bar’s life, but there’s a serious (and positive) pressure to up the game in craft beers (and spirits and mixers, for that matter).

I nearly worked for a bar that started out as a Gen X hunting lodge and became a sports/burger bar along the way. Becaus everything — everything! — is about curation.

A GRAVOIS ADVENTURE You could drive by Tim’s Chrome Bar a thousand times, spotting that big, mostly lit neon across the street from the Bevo Mill. And in all those trips you might not realize that the bar is part of a complex, as Tim’s is just a portion of a larger building that contains three storefronts and eight pensioner apartments upstairs. The restaurant next door, a Bosnian bakery/cafe called Stari Grad for more than twenty years, ties directly into Tim’s through a door that’s only secret due to the bar’s general darkness.

It’s fascinating to talk shop with the bar’s namesake, Tim Pappas. He has owned the place for more than 40 years, renting out those fascinating spaces upstairs for all that time, as well as running the bar through many years of boom and a few of less than that. He’s got a new tenant coming into one of the storefronts, and another one, though not open to the public, is “full of stuff,” he says, so there is income being generated by the complex, even as the bar has been reduced to mostly weekend hours.

These days, the bar is not actively for sale, in that there is no sign in the window. But if someone had the cash, the space would be very much available. Walking through the room, the appeals are many: the coat check room, the shapely pinups etched onto the bandstand’s mirrors, the centrali]ed dance ȵoor and the bacNbar which feels 100 feet long. To think: all of this, plus two rentable storefronts and all those apartments upstairs! The guess, though, is that the space is going to need some refresh. And as someone who struggles to meet hammer with nail, a fi[erupper seems liNe a challenge for another, smarter individual.

Tim’s won’t be Tom’s, not now. $ shame, ’cu] that dance ȵoor deserves some more dancers.

NEED GOOD IDEAS? NO NEED TO ASK Here’s some real talk. If you mention something like, “I’d like to open a bar in south St. Louis,” you’ll soon find yourself in contact with everyone you’ve met in your life. From single-serve opinions to those that recur again and again, here’re some things heard, learned and appreciated.

Bosnian Bars For Sale Showcase a Lot of Stone, Tile, Mirrors and Glass: That’s all. It’s true. Their Patrons Also Really Love Tobacco: Also true. An Empty Room is Not a Bar: People care about their neighborhoods for a number of reasons and want to see all the empty rooms wind up in use. Makes sense. Sometimes, though, well-intentioned folks send along sleeper picks that are thousands of dollars away from occupancy, let alone a functional business. As always, it’s the thought that counts. But that white box? It ain’t a bar. Or that old bakery? That ain’t a bar, either. You’d Walk in Another Town: You’re in Boston, New Orleans, Portland, any town with a lively nightlife. In those places, you’d walk a block, two, ten between spots you wish to hit. In St. Louis, if you can’t park within eyesight of the front door, it’s game over. We’ve got the parking sickness, people. There are totally functional spots that suffer from one issue, a lack of parking, and that’s gotta be considered.

So You’re Saying There’s a Chance?: Nothing throws a wrench in the works like the bar owner who is sitting on the perfect turnaround candidate but isn’t quite ready to sell (and may never be) but who wishes to engage in the ȵirtation. Ȋ&ome bacN after ta[ day” can be a phrase that rolls around your head when there’s a drowsy bar to awaken. Sometimes you’d rather just hear “no.”

Build It and They Will Come: There’s a space in town for a bar that serves only local products, down to the rail spirits, which are available. There’s a want for another lesbian bar on the south side, if multiple bits of feedback are to be believed. There’s already a moviethemed bar on the horizon. Lots of folks offer a pinch of karaoke or a hint of comedy. Could something devoted to seven nights a week of either exist south of 44? And here’s a money-maker that any of you can run with: a bar tied to Chicago and University of Illinois sports teams, catering to the numerous expats from that world. There’s my offering to the world, supported by absolutely no dollars. The way all good ideas tend to be presented. n