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SHORT ORDERS
Through boom times and bust, Al’s Restaurant has been a jewel of the St. Louis riverfront. | ANDY PAULISSEN
[ S T. L O U I S S TA N D A R D S ]
The Lay of the Landing Al’s Restaurant carries on the riverfront’s legacy, from its bustling days as a commercial hub to today Written by
CHERYL BAEHR
W
hen Pam Neal looks back at the old photographs from when her grandparents opened Al’s Restaurant, she is overwhelmed by just how different the river-
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RIVERFRONT TIMES
front was in those days. Back then, in , you could find as many horses as people on the Landing and its environs, the dirt roads and cobblestone tailormade for their clopping hooves as they helped move people around the neighborhood. However, even more striking than the infrastructure changes, Neal can’t help but marvel at how much energy there was in the area. At the time, the riverfront was the city’s commercial center, a vibrant hub of people and businesses — a far cry from the scene today. “Back then, the riverfront looked so different than it does now,” Neal says. “It was thriving and bustling. There were so many cargo boats and steamboats and all of that. It really was the hub — where St. Louis grew out of, and its beginning. My grandparents were in the thick of things that started the growth of the entire city.” he riverfront’s buzzing com-
OCTOBER 20-26, 2021
riverfronttimes.com
mercial activity is what brought her grandfather, Albert Borroni, do n to its streets in the first place. A soda truck driver who had immigrated to St. Louis from Milan, Italy, with his wife, Louise, Borroni found himself making deliveries in the area almost daily. One of his stops was an old sugar warehouse — one of many that used to populate the riverfront — that also served as a dry goods shop and saloon. Over time, he got to know the warehouse’s owner, then- ire Chief ulius ogel, and would sometimes go there with Louise. One day, the three got to talking about ho ogel anted to retire, and a lightbulb went off in Louise’s head. “She thought, ‘This is perfect’; she had some brothers and sisters who maybe weren’t quite as ambitious as her, so this seemed like a great thing to take it over and employ her family members,” Neal says. “Plus, the business was
downstairs and there was a living area upstairs, so they would have a home too.” The Borronis had no plans to change up the business they acquired, but Louise’s cooking made keeping things the same impossible. Upstairs, in the residential kitchen, she would cook for friends and neighbors who would stop by in the morning to play cards over a cup of coffee. Her egg sandwiches became famous in the neighborhood, and as word spread, she’d get people coming by just to enjoy her food. In fact, there were so many hungry guests showing up on her doorstep that Louise decided to start offering meals at the saloon. Over time, she built a steam table, and turned the lace into a bona fide cafeteria “It was so popular at lunch,” Neal says. “It was a large cafeteria with whole hams, roast beef, turkeys, pastas and salads. It was a thriving business. Railroad en-
