Cocktail bar Good Company has announced two pop-ups at The Vandy at 1301 South Vandeventer Avenue to preview its forthcoming spring launch. Good Company is aiming for an early April opening in the former Layla space at 4317 Manchester Avenue in the Grove.
St. Louis is a city of ardent and loyal fandom, and no two areas more demonstrate that fandom than our undying love of classic rock and the Cardinals. Each year, the St. Louis masses gather at classic rock temples of worship like Enterprise Center and Hollywood Casino Amphitheatre to revel in the music we've been conditioned to love by decades of KSHE radio, just as millions file into Busch Stadium every year to holler for the Redbirds.
This column was first published on Ray Hartmann's St. Louis Insider on Substack. I was about 10 minutes away from publishing a Substack on Wednesday related to the Super Bowl parade in Kansas City when headlines about shots being fired there started to flood my mobile devices. Obviously, I paused that one.
Moonstone Theatre Company begins its residency at the Robert G. Reim Theater with the St. Louis premiere of Adam Rapp’s The Sound Inside. The riveting drama is given an impressive production directed by Gary Wayne Barker and featuring Sharon Hunter as tenured Yale Professor Bella Baird and Ryan Lawson-Maeske as Christopher Dunn, an earnest student who longs to write a great novel.
The community is once again pleading with city officials to end SMS Novel’s plans to fly spy drones over their neighborhoods. SMS Novel, a drone surveillance company that markets itself on X (formerly known as Twitter) as specializing in interactive Christian films, says it launched its drones over the city on February 5.
West End Players Guild’s An Evening of One-Acts is a sweet theatrical bouquet that offers a consistently entertaining look at love and relationships. Directed by Carrie Phinney and Renee Sevier-Monsey, with a thematically appropriate sound design by Mary Beth Winslow that’s a treat, the seven short plays are filled with affection and relatable themes that make for pleasant, often laugh-out-loud funny viewing.
What is Lando Calrissian doing in St. Louis this week? A great question it is, one whose answer involves Black History Month, the St. Louis County Library and a new book by actor Billy Dee Williams, famous for his groundbreaking portrayal of Calrissian in the actually good Star Wars movies of the 1980s, among other roles.
Laticha “Lety” Bracero and Alyssa Cordova were as close as a mother and her only child could be. "Alyssa loved music concerts and although [she] was old enough to travel to concerts on her own, her mom would always escort her," Michelle del Bosque explains. "The two were inseparable and shared a strong bond."
A St. Louis concertgoer got some incredible news at Enterprise Center on Monday night — when rapper Drake said he'd pay for an upcoming surgery. The rapper was responding to a sign in the crowd when he addressed the fan directly. “You got a sign that says, ‘Please help me with my surgery,’" he said, a moment captured on video.
Every month, week, day and time of the year is the time to critique St. Louis media outlets on their coverage of Black people and retention of Black reporters and newsmakers. I’ll take Black History Month though.
Rejoice, bi-state consumers of plant-based intoxicants, for there is a new peddler of such wares opening this week in your midst. Revolution Dispensary (2533 Vandalia Street, Collinsville, Illinois) is sending up the smoke signals to welcome all in the area to celebrate its new Illinois location with a ribbon-cutting ceremony on Friday, February 16.
Why reach for a top-shelf margarita when the "house" at Chilanguita Mexican Kitchen (6997 Chippewa Street, 314-833-3055) smacks? Granted, some of the fancy ones come — fetchingly — with little flags in their limes; others, rosy in fish bowls, have copper-colored salt around their rims.
A former police officer in Potosi, Missouri, who used his position to prey on teen boys has been sentenced to 25 years in prison. Matthew Skaggs, now 40, pleaded guilty in November to felony charges of sex trafficking, solicitation of child pornography and coercion and enticement of a minor. He was sentenced today by U.S. District Court Judge Matthew Schelp.
Thursday 02/15 Black to the Future
A new art exhibit celebrating the talent of Black artists in St. Louis has opened at Beatnik Bob's inside City Museum (750 North 16th Street).
Schnucks' infuriating new self-checkout policy has notched its first arrest this week, with a man being taken into custody after allegedly flashing a gun at a store employee. KMOV reports that a man named Jessie Lee Garrett was attempting to go through the self-checkout line at the University City Schnucks on Monday when he was stopped by an employee for allegedly having more than 10 items in his cart, which is verboten under the new policy the stores rolled out early this month.
Launching in March, mobile coffee bar The Spilt Milk Café will be appearing at farmers' markets around St. Louis, as well as taking reservations for private events. Owner Phoebe Cuevas said the coffee cart is her first step on the road to eventually launching a brick-and-mortar cafe.
Ahmad Haynes and a handful of employees at BeLeaf Medical’s Sinse Cannabis site in St. Louis anxiously waited for the clock to hit 5 p.m. He and his coworkers had gathered outside the St. Louis Public Library’s Barr branch, where they had cast their votes to unionize earlier that afternoon on February 6.
For years St. Louis restaurateurs have dreaded the city’s liquor licensing process and hit roadblock after roadblock on their way to obtaining these licenses. A new bill making its way through the Board of Aldermen seeks to change that, but opponents argue the bill hasn’t had enough public input and goes too far in removing neighborhood voices from the process.
This story was commissioned by the River City Journalism Fund A sign on the wall of Barbara Baker’s office proclaims “Everything Is Possible,” and Baker’s life might be the ultimate proof of that.
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