The line stretching out the door said it all. Hours before Game 1 of the Stanley Cup Final, customers were crowding into Arch Apparel to buy blue T-shirts emblazoned with simple, proud phrases: “Best in the West,” “Play Gloria.” Even my father-in-law, a diehard Chicago Blackhawks fan, couldn’t help noticing the energy in St. Louis right now.
Signs of resurgence are everywhere. Cranes and crews in hard hats dot the central corridor. Developers are transforming historic buildings into modern apartments and hotels. As Evy Swoboda, The Last Hotel’s executive chef, told us: “Out-of-town developers see the local commitments—the NGA project, City Foundry, the success of Cortex and St. Louis attracting more tech in general—which attracts their investment. They’ve seen other cities turn the corner, and I’ve been told that St. Louis is next.”
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Buildings that long sat vacant now house some of the region’s hippest new restaurants. Inside a former Fox Park liquor store, Savage owner/chef Logan Ely produces some of the most imaginative dishes in the country. Bulrush exec chef Rob Connoley has transformed a bare-bones Midtown space into a modern restaurant that turns foraged foods into fine dining. Along Delmar, across from Third Degree Glass Factory, the MADE maker space is a much-needed resource for grown-up artists, designers, and entrepreneurs but also for children as it partners with The Magic House to extend the museum’s reach beyond Kirkwood.
And that’s to say nothing of our forthcoming aquarium, Forest Park’s plans, and the raceway’s revival.
Then there are the arts. New faces are bringing fresh ideas to our most beloved institutions: Stéphane Denève at the symphony, Hana Sharif at The Rep, Andrew Jorgensen at Opera Theatre, Tom Ridgely at Shakespeare Festival… St. Louis artists (Tonina, Justin Phillip Reed, Kennedy Holmes) and exhibits (Kehinde Wiley at SLAM) have received much-deserved national attention.
The prospect of a Major League Soccer team—what would be the league’s first majority women-owned franchise—has generated a new wave of excitement. “The response locally and nationally has been overwhelmingly positive,” says World Wide Technology CEO Jim Kavanaugh, part of the MLS4TheLou ownership group.
We saw the same kind of enthusiasm when we asked readers to share some of their favorite people and places for our annual A-List Readers’ Choice Awards ballot. This year, we expanded the size of the ballot to more than 150 categories and received more than 317,000 votes (almost triple last year’s tally), with more than 26,000 readers weighing in on everything from their favorite Vietnamese restaurant (Mai Lee) to their favorite actor (John Goodman).
As Goodman noted in a recent TV campaign touting all the region has to offer, we have not only the longtime favorites, but we have “more than our fair share of James Beard Award–winning chefs,” and “we’re still turning out some of music’s best every night at legendary music halls all over town.”
St. Louisans have known all this. Now the rest of the nation is beginning to find out.
