RFT 📰

Date of sighting: Late last month Location: Tower Grove East

Rasheed Samir Gresham, 48, loves everything about weed — growing it, talking about it, smoking it. So when Missouri legalized medical marijuana, Gresham jumped at the chance to become a licensed cultivator.

St. Louis Cardinals fans are often called “The Best Fans in Baseball.” But while St. Louisans might be mostly well-behaved when wearing red, they seem to go positively buck while wearing blue. And we’re not even talking about St. Louis Blues fans, either. Battlehawks fans lost their entire minds at the home opener this season and just a week prior, CITY SC fans brought the party to the streets to celebrate soccer’s official arrival to St. Louis.

When writing about Watchhouse, do we still have to mention that the duo was formerly known as Mandolin Orange? Well, I for one refuse to make note of it, and I will also not speculate that the name change had something to do with Donald Trump’s skin tone. 

Ward 14 candidate Rasheen Aldridge chastised his opponent today for “outright bigotry” after an unknown number sent photos of Aldridge at gay Pride events to at least one constituent.  Screenshots shared with the Riverfront Times show someone texted a voter photos of Aldridge with men at gay Pride events along with a message saying, “Is this the leadership you want you [sic] kids and grandkids following??”

Try not to choke on a throatful of awws as you look at the latest St. Louis CITY SC fan to dress like a toasted ravioli. Introducing: T-Rav Baby. Spotted at the most recent CITY home game, T-Rav Baby was ready for the noise and the weather, wearing pink headphones and bundled up in a onesie.

A good contemporary drama, like Dominique Morisseau’s gritty and affirming Skeleton Crew, holds a mirror to society, then shifts our perspective so we can see a more complete view of the world the story reflects. The Black Rep’s production — directed by Geovonday Jones and featuring fully connected, layered stories and complex characters — is a completely engrossing interpretation.

Senate candidate Lucas Kunce announced today he raised $1.1 million in the first three months of the year, a haul his campaign says is a record for a candidate challenging an incumbent senator in Missouri. According to a statement put out by the Kunce campaign, the money raised is approximately four times the amount raised by Josh Hawley in the last quarter of 2022, the most recent quarter for which Hawley fundraising data is available. Kunce's campaign said that 97 percent of its donors in the last three months gave less than $200 and the average was $34.

Ever since word came that the Bognar family would be closing their west county Japanese restaurant Nippon Tei, St. Louis diners have been anticipating its successor, Sado. In January, the number of people holding their breath on this account grew significantly when Bloomberg named it one of the 14 Most Anticipated Restaurants in America. But thankfully, that wait is finally over: Chef and owner Nick Bognar opened Sado's doors at 5201 Shaw Avenue on March 28 with a menu featuring a medley of sashimi, omakase service and Americanized sushi dishes.

A De Soto man is facing a total of 40 felonies stemming from burglaries he allegedly committed at three separate self-storage facilities in St. Louis city over the last two years. As of Friday, Matthew Wayne Pelich, 45, is facing a mix of property damage, stealing and burglary charges. Among the items Pelich allegedly stole from the storage units were designer clothes, jewelry, a microwave oven, 36 bottles of Old Fitzgerald Bonded Bourbon and a pair of weed eaters, according to the police probable cause statement.

Damn, who turned up the temperature in here? A picture of the naked torso of Donald Trump shared by Representative Nick Schroer (R-St. Charles) last Friday had fellow stans of the disgraced former president getting all hot and bothered.

St. Louis CITY SC’s historic five-game winning streak start to its inaugural Major League Soccer season ended in front of a sold out CITYPARK on Saturday night. CITY fell 1-0 to a 78th-minute Minnesota United penalty kick.

MONDAY, MARCH 27 Three children and three adults are dead in Nashville after yet another horrible school shooting. Never mind that authorities are only beginning to dig into the shooters’ manifesto; Josh Hawley knows what happened — it’s a hate crime targeting Christians! Meanwhile, the writers over at Deadspin are in awe of St. Louis’ new MLS team.

The Grove has just become a little less delicious: BEAST Butcher & Block in the Grove (4156 Manchester Avenue) closed for daily operations on March 26. The restaurant will fulfill all obligations made for April, St. Louis Magazine reported yesterday.

Thirty-three years ago, serial murderer Gary Muehlberg discarded 18-year-old Robyn Mihan’s dead body along a stretch of rural Highway E in Lincoln County. Muehlberg abducted Mihan from the Southside Stroll in St. Louis on Thursday, March 22, 1990, before murdering her in his home in Bel-Ridge. That Monday, he tied her lifeless body between two mattresses and in the early morning hours left her along the roadside to be found by a commuter.

Last year, people everywhere fell in love with local star mixologist Meredith Barry. In town, many already know Barry for the cocktails she whips up at the bar she co-owns, Platypus. But even those who have never sipped one of her drinks soon found themselves enchanted when Barry competed on Netflix's Drink Masters.

The storm that’s coming to the area today is so bad that meteorologists have been predicting it since earlier this week. They’ve been saying all along that it would be potentially very dangerous, but as it gets closer, it looks like this storm will be even worse than feared.

Planned Parenthood of the St. Louis Region and Southwest Missouri sued Attorney General Andrew Bailey today over his “sham” transgender care investigation.  

It’s baseball season, and for beer drinkers, that means a Pavlovian thirst for lagers. The connection dates back at least to the 1880s, and more than a century of aggressive marketing has conditioned us to crave suds at the crack of a bat.

Here's something that should put a spring in the city's step: Travel + Leisure has named St. Louis one of the 10 most "beautiful and affordable" places in the country. The magazine based its conclusions on lists compiled by U.S. News and World Report, which we all know are never wrong and which looked at things like median rent and median home prices. How they determined our beauty isn't exactly clear, but an assessment of Forest Park was involved: