RFT 📰

Each week, we bring you our picks for the best concerts of the next seven days! To submit your show for consideration, click here.

It’s weird what we St. Louisans will laugh at. Just this morning, a recent TikTok clip documenting a visit to St. Louis had locals rolling.

The Cool Valley City Council plans to hold a hearing to impeach and remove Mayor Jayson Stewart on January 25. Last month, the council voted on charges that Stewart has allegedly refused to follow council directives, including refusing to share city financial records, disclose the whereabouts of $230,000 in COVID-relief funds and return a city-owned police car and gas card.

On a cold Monday morning at 10 a.m. in December, two people are fishing at Jefferson Lake next to Steinberg Skating Rink in Forest Park. Their names are Denny Vaninger, who once played for the U.S. men’s national soccer team, and Kevin Burke. The gentlemen wanted to talk but didn’t want their pictures in the paper.

A Missouri woman already in prison for embezzlement was sentenced yesterday in federal court to two additional years in prison for COVID-relief fraud. Christen Diane Schulte of Franklin County worked as a bookkeeper for a trucking company from 2018 to 2020, during which time she funneled $727,000 of company funds into her own pocket. After her scheme was uncovered, Schulte was charged in 2020 with wire fraud, bank fraud and money laundering.

Demetrius Evans knew one thing after he pointed a gun at a police officer’s head — that what he did next would change his entire life. An officer had just found him cowering behind a trash can after Evans, 27 at the time, tried to evade police in a vehicle chase.

As if you needed another reason to eat Juniper's (4101 Laclede Avenue, 314-329-7696) acclaimed fried chicken, chef and owner John Perkins has sweetened the deal. The entire month of January, the restaurant is running a fundraiser to benefit the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society with the goal of raising $30,000 to help fund the organization's research and advocacy efforts. Throughout the month, Juniper guests will be able to donate to the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society by using a QR code at their table or telling their server an amount they would like to donate and having it added to their bill.

Find the best things to do in St. Louis this weekend: Friday 01/06

If things had gone according to plan, Amy Guo and Dan Jensen would never have opened Sando Shack (3173 Morgan Ford Road, 314-449-1011). Though the partners in life and business moved back to Guo's hometown from Seattle in July of 2020 to open a restaurant, it had nothing to do with Japanese sandwiches. Instead, their vision centered around Hello Poke, a fast-casual concept they were preparing to open at the then-forthcoming Food Hall at City Foundry.

Brazen thieves smashed through the front door of the Denny Dennis Sporting Goods (1 Gravois Road) store in Fenton yesterday and got away with seven guns. Located just west of the Meramec River, the popular store advertises a “huge selection of in-stock inventory” on its website and that’s just what the thieves were after.

The weather outside may again be frightful, but a new pop-up bar from Eckert's Farm aims to brings some delight to the east side of the river this winter. The Belleville, Illinois, farm announced Wednesday afternoon that it will be hosting a "Cozy Cider Cabin" pop-up each Thursday through Sunday beginning on January 12. The special event will see Eckert's Cider Shed, which opened over the summer, transported to the mountains for an immersive experience meant to evoke cabin living.

St. Louis radio station KPNT 105.7 “The Point” announced this morning that host Tony Patrico has left the station amid ongoing allegations that he messaged fans with sexually suggestive comments. The station, run by Hubbard Radio, posted the news on Facebook at 10:11 a.m., saying, “Tony Patrico is no longer with Hubbard Radio or a member of The Rizzuto Show.

If you had to sum up the energy surrounding this month's restaurant openings, you could do so in just two words: Wright's Tavern. The highly anticipated restaurant from two of the area's most prominent food and beverage veterans, restaurateur Matt McGuire and chef Cary McDowell, opened its doors on December 5, bringing to Clayton's Wydown business district the quintessential neighborhood steakhouse experience in Zoë Robinson's former I Fratellini storefront. Out of the gates, Wright's has proven to be the hottest reservation ticket in town and, like Louie, already feels like an institution in the making.

Early this morning a 23-year-old speeding through the alleys of the Central West End in his Mercedes-Benz struck a dumpster, causing it to go airborne and causing the car to catch fire. The dumpster was struck with such force that it landed in a resident's backyard.

Forced seclusion and restraint can have a traumatic impact on children, especially for kids with disabilities, who comprise the vast majority of those subjected to this treatment in school. The practice, sometimes called “isolated time-out,” can result in troubled kids being placed alone in “quiet rooms” that endanger them because adult supervision is often lacking.

For some reason, this feels like a cause that could only emerge from the scattered remnants of the Missouri Republican Party. One of the top GOP priorities for the new year will be finally getting an item on the statewide ballot to make it harder for future voters to act in their own interests by statewide ballot. Every sentence about this nonsense comes to you courtesy of the Department of Redundancy Department.

This story was commissioned by the River City Journalism Fund as part of its series Shadow of Death, which considers St. Louis County’s use of the death penalty. Tonight at a prison in Bonne Terre, the state of Missouri carried out the first execution of an openly transgender woman in the history of the United States. 

How much do you miss the Cards in the off season? Is it enough to bundle up your kids on a probably cold January day, drag them out to the car and head down into the city to the Cardinals Nation Restaurant & Bar (601 Clark Street, 314-345-9880)?

In Death of a Salesman, Willy Loman is reaching the end of his career as a traveling salesman, and there's not much to show for it. Despite working hard his whole life, Willy never achieved the elusive American dream and his sons, Biff and Happy, are struggling as well.

Just because Christmas is over doesn't mean that the winter wonder has to cease. Load up the car and head to The Snowy Day: A Glowy Snowy Experience.