For the month of July, it’s a quartet of new experiences, all of them undertaken locally for little dough. Check back every Wednesday for a new edition.
There was a time at which I would’ve greeted the news of a big, new club in the City of St. Louis with euphoria. A week wouldn’t have passed without at least a visit, or even two. But as time’s gone on, the need to make the scene’s been reduced a bit. Or a lot. As proven by the arrival of Plush (3224 Locust, 314-535-2686), a fairly massive venue on the west side of Downtown, now open since... January!
And a first visit’s coming in early July? Oh my, times have changed.
Not that I wasn’t interested. I kept tabs on the place through friends. And the word kept circling back that Plush is a bit different than the average club. Larger, in multiple respects, with a variety of different rooms and themes. The club, people kept saying, was unusual: a music venue, with multiple floors of seating; a restaurant with hours stretching from breakfast to dinner; and a location that’s still a bit off-the-beaten-path, even with the rise of dozens of businesses along the Locust corridor.
Located a few blocks from a lot of different landmarks, depending on your vantage point, you can spot the Chaifetz Arena, the Fox Theatre and multiple nearby businesses from the front door, the outdoor decks, or the expansive windows. The neighborhood around it’s still in flux, with gorgeous, rehabbed warehouses mingling alongside empty lots, like the one that sits directly across the street. From the exterior alone you get the sense that this venue’s got room to burn; the website claims 10,000 square feet in total.
But here’s the thing: If people gave reports about this place being cut from a different cloth, they weren’t wrong. They just weren’t pushing the idea enough. This is possibly the strangest, large-scale club/restaurant to hit St. Louis in years. And that’s to be praised.
On Monday night, for example, a few different components of the room were sampled. There was no live music, so the music venue was dark. You could still walk around in it, though, which was done. But before even a cursory, self-guided tour could be completed, the food was already up and set atop the bar: a very nice salmon club, a fine “macken cheese” with spinach and a side spinach salad for good measure. Beer choices came compliments of two breweries within walking distance: Six Row (Double IPA) and Urban Chestnut (Schnickelfritz), both of which were as enthusiastically consumed as was the food.
After a meal, further exploration of the space was called for, and some of the results were interesting to say the least. Upstairs, a bartender sat alone in a sizable bar space. Working? Just hanging out? He was silent and it was impossible to judge. On the other hand, an enthusiastic gent was downstairs, affixing artwork to the walls of a long hallway. The only other customers in the venue were spotted leaving, though they were replaced by an eight-top in the restaurant section. With that small number of people in the place, there was plenty of room to ramble and that was the plan, until... a ping-pong table was spotted.
Now, there are a few ping-pong tables in St. Louis clubs, but they’re usually at small, out-the-way bars, some of them so tightly packed into the room that you’re as likely to bang a ball off a nearby drinker’s head as not. But at Plush, the table tennis setup has plenty of air, allowing you to lunge after that particularly wicked backhand return. When the overhead sound system kicks into Joy Division’s “Love Will Tear Us Apart,” during an especially tense exchange of shots, you have to appreciate the moment.
Surely, there’ll be a cool show held at Plush in the near future, with the music venue filled to the brim with hip young folks having whatever kinda fun those types have these days. But if you’re looking for something interesting to do on a quiet weeknight, and business/pleasure is taking you into midtown, consider a stop at Plush. And don’t even think about taking off without a first-to-21 match of ping pong.
