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Pizza from Samwiches
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Sam Bauer
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A door opens to reveal a massive pipe organ being played, next to the corkscrew of a 10-story slide.
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Fresh, warm mini donuts from the "Overflow"
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The mini donut fryer is so cute.
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The 1881 “Goodell Bonanza” apple peeler/corer
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Nachos with roasted, pulled chicken on the rooftop taco stand
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A Dark & Stormy, available at the rooftop bar
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Samwiches' menu--and a whole lot more to look at
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Fresh, warm chocolate-chip cookies from Samwiches
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Pablo Weiss is done with the drama of running restaurants... sort-of.
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Weiss' candy counter
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"The Italian Surfer with a Russian Attitude"
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Weiss' BBQ menu
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Mango-glazed BBQ baby back ribs, with sides
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The corn-dog stand within Beatnik Bob's
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The "living cupola" on the rooftop, being explored
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Kids having fun on the rooftop
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Louis Sullivan filigree salvaged from Chicago, being installed on the fourth floor -- one of many new features being constructed at the Museum
“I’ve been avoiding reality for 17 years,” said Sam Bauer, veteran owner of the Samwiches sandwich counter inside the City Museum.
He ain’t kidding. To talk to the City Museum “long-timers” is to begin to understand their culture, which trickled down from the late, lamented Bob Cassilly’s personality: laid-back, creative, anarchist, joyous, and forever open to wonder.
The endless, organic growth within (and through) the walls of the indefinable urban attraction is infectious. Case-in-point: the fourth-floor “Overflow” donut stand, also run by Bauer, was just gifted with a number of entryways that were not there before. Cassilly’s crew, the hands-on construction specialists continually improving the space, cut through a thick concrete floor and connected new, sculptural iron staircases to the points of entry. Suddenly, the restaurant has more customers – and the customers, like most City Museum patrons, discover the delicious warm mini donuts quite by surprise when they climb through the floor and wind up at a food stand. They stumble onto the snack area by pure serendipity; it’s the City Museum way.
They also might wander into the donut counter via a locked door that has suddenly, mysteriously remained unlocked for a little while now. (Bauer isn’t sure why things have changed. Truly, no one may know the answer.) It’s a door with donuts on one side, and an organist playing everything from Glenn Miller to Abba on a massive pipe organ on the other. The music is what revelers hear as they corkscrew100 feet down on the 10-story slide. Whether donuts lead to the haunting music, or haunting music leads to donuts, the magic works either way. High weirdness for kids of all ages.
August at City Museum means a flood of kids on summer vacation beginning to slow as the long, dark nightmare of public schooling resumes. As the children run riot through the building, one may notice they’re expending calories, and they need to put a few back. City Museum not only has a dozen or so separate food and drink concessions, it has three distinct restaurant “narratives.”
On the roof, Cassilly’s son Max Cassilly sells slow-roasted chicken and beef nachos and tacos. On the fourth floor and mezzanine, Bauer sells sandwiches, pizza, donuts, and he’ll soon open a breakfast bar, he said. And on the first floor, renowned area restaurateur Pablo Weiss has abandoned the intensity of running clubs and fine-dining establishments for the distinct chaos of the Museum. Each is a separate financial entity of its own, and each offers its own specialties.
The architecture of the building’s rooftop literally takes the Museum to another level. All the oddness of the floors below is there in its playful imagining, but the backdrop of the sky lends a majesty (a water feature is extra-elegant) as well as a terror (the Ferris wheel offers breathtaking vertigo). Between majesty and terror sits Max Cassilly’s taco stand. The heir apparent and staff take their time and do it right. A massive mound of nachos is made with slow-roasted chicken or beef, and fresh, house-made pico de gallo. The stand, which has a swell view of kids flying down a steep slide, also offers grilled all-beef hot dogs and ice-cream novelties. The impressive line-up of beers includes Schlafly, Guinness, Corona, Fat Tire and Sierra Nevada. Cocktails include the classic Dark ‘n Stormy ginger beer and dark rum, and the popular Mama’s Lemonade, made with blueberry vodka and lemonade.
On the mezzanine level, Sam and Carolyn Bauer operate the busy Samwiches café. Brick-oven pizzas are the most popular item there, but the secret weapon is the fresh-baked cookies, served warm. The aroma from the opened oven, said Sam, draws’ em in.
Sam has been here ever since the Museum opened in ’97. He managed the St. Louis Bread Co. which once occupied the Samwiches space, in fact. Many of the workers in his crew are veterans, too, he said. They are part of an extended family that, like him, came to the City Museum and never left.
Many don’t realize that Samwiches opens at 9 a.m. daily to sell coffee drinks and muffins. You can show up at the Museum’s downstairs info desk and ask for an escort to Samwiches to buy food and drink, and you won’t have to pay admission.
Bauer is serious about helping diners with allergies. “We offer a gluten-free pizza,” he said, “and last Saturday we had people with 11 different allergies in one lunch.” He was not joking.
Bauer’s fourth-floor “Overflow,” described above, is centered on the fryer that makes the same sort of cute mini-donuts you can buy at Soulard Market. They pop out warm for every customer, and after being sprinkled with powdered sugar or another topping, they’re just dreamy. They taste a bit like funnel cake dough, and at three for a dollar, the price can’t be beat. (Parents who want their kids to eat healthier are advised to let them turn the crank of the 1881 “Goodell Bonanza” apple peeler/corer, and have them eat an apple.)
On September 5, the Overflow will change to an expanded breakfast concept, Bauer said. Look for omelets, waffles, sausage, bacon, pancakes made by a conveyor-belt machine and fresh-squeezed orange juice. Bauer, in the Cassilly spirit, plans to offer ribbon French fries that issue from the mouth of a carved Medusa head.
The creator of popular joints Kitchen K, Nectar, Rocket Bar, and Hot Locust, Pablo Weiss came to the City Museum to offer his talents as restaurateur, and to get wacky.
The first floor is a series of counters run by Weiss. A slushy counter and candy stand sit near a BBQ grill and the noted cabin bar. The latter is an oasis of air conditioning that offers family-friendly smoothies in addition to the full bar. One new fun and fruity cocktail, the “Italian Surfer with a Russian Attitude,” is made with Malibu rum, Amaretto, and pineapple juice shaken hard, poured over ice, and finished with a splash of cranberry juice and a shot of vodka.
The barbecue grill, made from a repurposed steam pipe, sits on the patio near the ball pits. In addition to the standard hot dogs, hamburgers, and brats, Weiss offers pulled pork; “Ethel Mae’s grilled chicken” (a creation of Weiss’ employee Tony Stone), cooked in a lemony North Carolina mop sauce; and Weiss’ signature dish, mango BBQ babyback ribs. The ribs receive a brown-sugar rub, they’re cooked sous vide, and then finished on the grill with the mango BBQ sauce. That sweet sauce really pops – and the messiness of eating ribs somehow goes hand-in-hand with the controlled chaos of the Museum itself.
There are a few other places within the Museum to get food, like Beatnik Bob’s corn-dog stand, which, of course, overlooks Bill Christman’s corny “Museum of the Corn Dog.”
Regardless of which stand you go to for eats, the City Museum concession prices do not reflect the typical gouging you’ll find at other places with a captive crowd – cinemas, airports, stadiums, etc. Max Cassilly, Sam Bauer and Pablo Weiss keep it casual, the way Bob Cassilly did. In a land of suddenly appearing egresses and pipe organs, of caves lined with creatures hidden in the plaster and 10-story slides and a giant praying mantis that crowns the roof, there are enough surprises.
City Museum
750 N. 16th
314-231-2489
