For the month of May, we’ll visit restaurants new to us, though some of have been around for a good, long while. These aren’t restaurant reviews, not by a long shot; instead, consider ‘em experiential looks at spots that’ve somehow flown under the personal radar. This is our final week of five Wednesdays, so dig back into the May archives for past editions. And next month: festivals of all sorts.
It’s not a trend limited to South St. Louis, but it’s certainly a part of town that sees a good share of fast-food restaurants go out of business. And taking up the old shells are an interesting blend of mom-and-pop operations, family-owned restaurants that have equal amounts of success and failure in retrofitting these old spaces and making a successful go of new concepts. And the bold and busy intersection of Grand and Gravois is a good place to start fanning out, if you’re interested in testing these independent successors to the fast-food giants.
A few blocks south of there, just past Chippewa on Grand, St. Louis Pho (3863 S. Grand, 314-664-4041), a combo Vietnamese and Chinese restaurant, has set up shop in an old fast-food location. If memory serves correct, it was a Burger King before that chain shuttered multiple locations in the area. Since then, the same venue has had a fish-and-chicken operation, My Daily Bread, which lasted for a year, maybe two. (Ironically, just north on Grand, Mama Pho, a short-lived Vietnamese restaurant, was recently replaced by J.R. Cricket’s, a fish-and-chicken outfit. Both succeeded a long-standing McDonald’s. They do come and go.)
This part of Grand’s seen some changes over the years. And while some of the old guard businesses remain anchors (Guiseppe’s Ristorante, Ted Drewes, Merb’s Candies), when the streetlights come on, the immediate stretch around St. Louis Pho gets a little bit edgy. (A nearby gas station, in particular, serves as a flame to all kinds of interesting, nocturnal moths.) But once you get inside St. Louis Pho, there’s a feeling that the ownership has invested in a space that they want to make more than just an average, lightly trafficked, storefront Asian restaurant.
Partially, that’s because of ample seating. With tables and benches combined, there’s room for at least 80 diners inside the space, which features a very small bar section and several rows of tables and booths. A pair of sizable TVs dominate the east and west walls; on Sunday, one was tuned to Vietnamese programming, the other to the NBA semi-finals. A full staff was on-hand, with at least three servers moving through the space. Our visit came a half hour before close and the only other diners were all members of a big party at several center tables, along with their kids who rambled through every corner of the establishment. Vietnamese was the only language spoken in the place, save for our orders. That’s usually a good sign that a fine meal is to be had.
Going through the menu took a minute, as the 224 items are spread out over about 20 pages of paper. You might consider asking for the more manageable to-go menu, which provides a much easier read. Our rice dishes were fine, nothing to celebrate, per se, but serviceable and on the Chinese end of St. Louis Pho’s spectrum. Next time, it’ll be time a visit for Vietnamese options.
If anything was entertaining about the place, it came from that big loud family right in the center of the room. They talked and laughed loudly, the men tipping back a large number of Heineken’s, which seem to be the only alcohol option on-hand. At some point, one of them knocked over a Sterno heater and a literal fireball erupted, setting several napkins on fire and sending patrons flying. The entire staff rushed over, one fanning at the smoke, which had set off the overhead detectors. But as quickly as the fire was the center of attention, it was out. The smell lingered for a few minutes, but everybody went back to their business fairly quickly. The conversations were still going as we headed out into the Southside night, just after closing hour.
A good anecdote. A decent meal. A few dollars put into a new local business. A reasonably efficient end to our month of new tastes, locales, and experiences.
