St. Louis Magazine November/December 2024

OH, THE LIFE of a dining writer. Yes, it has its perks: the noshing and imbibing, of course, but also the relationships with restaurateurs, the insider knowledge, the platform to share an informed opinion. At the same time, it brings its share of challenges: the calories, the long hours, the equally opinionated restaurateurs. It's a job that can be both incredibly rewarding and all-consuming—in every sense of the phrase. This issue's cover story is a sort of culmination of all that sampling and sipping. It features our biannual Best Restaurants feature, arguably our most popular Best List. Dining editor George Mahe and staff writer Cheryl Baehr—two of St. Louis' most knowledgeable dining experts, having worked a wide range of roles in the industry, from busser to owner—spent countless hours covering…

GATEWAY TOPIC A ON VIRGINIA AVENUE, in Tower Grove East, there's a stone-and-brick house that should be worth a quarter million dollars, easy: It has fine, century-old detail and a Dutch gambrel roof. But windows are missing. Doorways are boarded up. Sewage seeps into adjoining yards. Parents warn their kids to stay away. When neighbors move, they'll have to sell for less than they would otherwise; the next to decamp, even more so. It's a vicious cycle. This is the real doom loop. It's happening all over town. Houses like the one in Tower Grove East are known as nuisance properties, and they are the bane of the St. Louis city blocks on which they're left to crumble. Many of the owners are speculators—some from the county, some from as far…

MORE TO KNOW SOME MILESTONES IN THE EVOLUTION OF MISSOURI'S NUISANCE LAW JUL 9, 2019 An updated state nuisance law helps St. Louis and Kansas City residents go after problem properties in court. OCT 17, 2023 Neighbors of the infamous “Murder Shell” gas station on Tucker Boulevard downtown file suit under the law. JAN 16, 2024 City hall uses the law to file a wide-ranging complaint against one of the city's most notorious slumlords. AUG 1, 2024 The lawsuit involving the “Murder Shell” results in that gas station's closure.…

GATEWAY FYI Subscribe to the Outdoors newsletter at stlmag.com. THE “CASTLEWOOD 8-HOUR Adventure Race” is a bit of a misnomer. The contest no longer always passes through its eponymous state park in West County. Rather, the organizers, Carrie and Jeff Sona, select a cluster of parks, roads, and waterways somewhere in the region and string together a sequence of race “sections,” each requiring a specific mode of travel: trekking, mountain biking, or paddling. When the teams (of two or four racers, moving as a group) arrive at a section, they must use a topo map and clue sheet—usually kept secret until the night before the race—to decide the fastest way of finding the various “checkpoints” hidden in that section. One checkpoint equals one point for the team. But for every…

Even in a quiet year, Neal Richardson has a tough charge: As executive director of the St. Louis Development Corp., the city's nonprofit development arm, he listens to progressive politicians and business folks, trying to get them to yes on various projects. And 2024 wasn't a quiet year. The Wall Street Journal reported that downtown was in a “doom loop.” Giant empty buildings (e.g. the Railway Exchange Building) drew headlines. Then came SLDC's course correction on a $37 million program of business and nonprofit grants funded by the American Rescue Plan Act. Richardson steered the ship through all of that. This is not his first job downtown, by the way: As a teen, he rode the bus south from the Lewis Place neighborhood to the old Busch Stadium, where he…

RHYTHM PRELUDE THE WORLD OF tabletop role-playing games, or TTRPGS, has never been bigger. Actual play shows and podcasts are everywhere, a 20-sided die just graced the cover of a special edition of Time magazine, and audiences are watching players roll dice live on Broadway. It's into this rich environment that local artist and educator Steenz and author Samuel Sattin's Side Quest: A Visual History of Role-playing Games has been released. Published by Versify in October, this illustrated history of the TTRPG genre goes far beyond the humble beginnings of Dungeons & Dragons. In fact, the story of role-playing games—and imaginative play in general—begins in ancient times. Side Quest takes readers on Magic School Bus–style rides to Han dynasty China, 6th century India, ancient Rome, and more as it examines the…