Poll: What Three (3) St. Louis Area Restaurants Have Closed That You Wish Were Still Open?
Many restaurants I remember from my childhood in Oklahoma City have since closed: Split-T, Al’s Hideaway BBQ, Nicolosi’s, etc. In my 23 years in St. Louis I’ve seen many restaurants come and go too. All I have left are fond memories.
The poll this week asks: What three (3) St. Louis area restaurants have closed that you wish were still open? So put on your nostalgia hat and review the list of 30 I’ve included as options in the poll:
- 94th Aerosquadron
- Bleeding Deacon
- Brandt’s
- Busch’s Grove
- Chez Leon
- Chuy Arzola’s (Dogtown)
- Del Taco
- Delmar Lounge
- Duff’s
- El Burrito Loco
- Empire Sandwich Shop
- Flaco’s Tacos
- King Louie’s
- Marty’s Baking
- Minions Cafe
- Miss Hullings
- Monarch
- O’Malley’s
- Papa Fabare’s
- Parkmoor
- Pestalozzi Place
- Red Moon
- Rossino’s
- Sunshine Inn
- The Salad Bowl
- Shangri La Diner
- The Stable
- Tangerine
- Tin Can
- Zoe’s Panasian
They’re alphabetical here but will be presented in random order in the poll (right sidebar). Here are more closed restaurants you might want to include in the other field:
- Colorado
- Gulf Coast Cafe
- Kitchen K
- Kopperman’s
- La Fourchette
- Mattingly’s
- Mojo Tapas
- Moxy
- Pelican
- Sage
- Simply Fondue
- Shuggas
- Southern Belle Supper Club
- Tanner B’s
- Terrene
You can also review a list of closed restaurants on UrbanSpoon.com.
Thanks to my Facebook friends with help generating all these names, I’d forgotten about many. Please share your memories in the comments below.
— Steve Patterson
Gino’s on Hampton
Church’s Chicken on Delmar. RIP.
🙂
Riddle’s on Delmar. Especially this time of year for tomato salad.
Seconded.
Shangri-La, on Cherokee. What up, Christine? Service was sometimes a bit pokey, but the female waitstaff tended toward the nerdy/bespectacled/tattooed/curvaceous/sweet, and anyway, my wife and I used to take to playing a game of Scrabble while we waited.
Sunflower, in the DeBaliviere neighborhood. One of the best and cheapest gourmet restaurants in the City. Fantastic, fresh food, in perfect portions, and most often featuring seasonal ingredients. And those little loaves of bread they brought out with some olive oil. *sigh* My wife and I sure do miss that one. We went at least every one to two months,and could walk out of there with appeteasers, dinner, wine/beer, dessert for under forty, w/tip.
Cafe Istanbul (or was it Istanbul Cafe). Yeah, it was in Webster, but it wasn’t too far from the Hill, where I lived at the time, and my then-girlfriend’s (now wife; hey, I’m not stupid) apt (s) in Tower Grove. (one of which was the old undertaking building on Shenandoah and Tennessee; Herr? Hier? Haas?) It was only open for a year. I worked with an Iranian immigrant who knew the owner/prop, and he said she was a bit overcome with the workload. Best hummus on the planet.
Honorable mention to Burrito Loco. Though the circumstances of their closing, as they relate to my wife and I preclude their inclusion in the top three.
I miss the Parkmoor more as a fine example of Googie than I do as a restaurant, though it had good food well-prepared.
Garavelli’s?
Il Vicino’s in Clayton.
Salt on Lindell. Delicious food and drinks, but bad management…
John Mineo’s and The Seventh Inn, both out in west county.