Take one step into either the River City Casino or the Stadium Sports Bar and Grill at Lumière Place Casino, and it’s going to smell like gingerbread. Not just a little, but a lot. The source of the scent is not just scented candles or a Glade Plug-in. Oh no, it’s the real deal, in the form of 14-foot tall, 140 sq. foot gingerbread houses that you can actually dine inside of.
For $20, guests can make a reservation for up to four people to eat inside one of the gingerbread houses, one at each location. The $20 reservation fee goes towards the Center for Hearing and Speech, a St. Louis-based organization that aids individuals with speech and hearing disorders. At that point, guests have the option of ordering from a special menu, an a la carte menu, or just lingering over a glass of wine or few cups of cocoa.
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For $25 each, guests can order off a pre-fixe menu, specifically made for service in the gingerbread house. Guests can choose between appetizers such as pumpkin pie soup and crème fraiche, entrees such as braised ham or roasted turkey breast, or eggnog flan and cinnamon crust as a dessert. If none of those suit your fancy, the menus from the Stadium Sports Bar and Grill and Lewy Nine’s Café will be available at their respective locations.
Candice Coleman, public relations manager for both Lumiere and River City, said the houses were upsized from the houses constructed last year.
“We thought that we could do something bigger and better this year, and we did,” Coleman says. “Our executive chef John Johnson (below right) always believes in going above and beyond.”
For Johnson, above and beyond means 450 pounds of gingerbread dough, 100 pounds of granulated sugar, and 100 homemade enormous jellybeans and 130 giant cupcakes, because jellybeans and cupcakes big enough for the project, frankly, just didn’t exist!
Coleman said the houses were a collaboration between the facilities department and the food and beverage department of Lumiere and River City. The facilities department was in charge of constructing the frames, and finding locations in the casinos with high enough ceilings to accommodate them. The food and beverage department took over from there, baking 500 6-inch by 12-inch gingerbread bricks to construct the house.
The houses are no bare shacks, though. Inside, there are shelves and fireplaces made of gingerbread. A chandelier hangs from the ceiling, and a little Christmas tree sits in the corner. A table for four sits in the center, set for a Christmas feast.
“We totally decorated it,” Coleman says. “Santa would be very proud. Our chefs took this very, very seriously.”
After dinner, guests are given their very own gingerbread brick to decorate, and either take home with them, or leave to be used to decorate the house. Coleman says that so far, more guests have chosen to leave their mark on the house, instead keeping it to feast on later.
Some guests, however, have chosen to leave their mark in a different way. Coleman says that the houses need daily repair, due to the amount of snacking guests have done to the houses themselves.
“Especially after busy nights,” Coleman says, laughing. “But we don’t mind. We’re thrilled; we’ll happily repair the house. It is hard to resist just grabbing a bit as you’re walking off.”
Proceeds of the reservation fee goes toward the Center for Hearing and Speech’s “Not So Silent Night” campaign, which provides hearing aids to those in need this holiday season.
Reservations will be taken at each location through December 26. To reserve at River City Casino, call 314-388-7625; at Lumiere Place Casino, call 314-881-7595.
