chesterfield | Wheel of Fortune LIVE! spins through The Factory at The District in Chesterfield Valley on Oct. 21, hosted by Mark Walberg, a veteran host of the live component, having hosted 100 LIVE! shows during the last three years. He is best known as the host of Temptation Island on Netflix—he was just named ‘Reality Host with the Most’ in the Netflix Summer Event awards. He was also the longtime host of PBS’s Antique Roadshow, helped launch Lifetime’s Shop ’til You Drop and headlined his own show. Walberg kicked off this year’s LIVE! tour with an extended run on the Las Vegas Strip. VIP packages are also available for next month’s event to allow fans early access, premier seats, pre-show lounge access and photo opportunities while spinning the wheel. Audience members will be randomly selected to come up on stage to play: spin the wheel, then show their skill by calling consonants, buying vowels and solving puzzles for an opportunity to win fantastic prizes, including vacations to destinations like Paris and Hawaii, or cash prizes up to $10,000. Also, attendees will have the opportunity to get a head start in the audition process for the TV show: Completing applications on-site will put applicants directly into the producers’ audition queue. If successful, hopefuls will appear alongside Ryan Seacrest and Vanna White on the televised game show, one of the most popular TV shows in history and now in its 42nd season in syndication. Tickets are available now at ticketmaster.com for the 7:30 p.m. event.
the metro
Used to be the U.S. mail was pretty much idiot-proof: You just affixed a stamp or stamps for the proper amount of postage, sent it on its way, and a letter or bill payment would arrive at the address on the front of the envelope soon enough. Getting mail to my daughter at Mizzou was pretty dependable—in that anything I dropped in the mail on Thursday would arrive in Columbia by Friday or Saturday. But something, or some things, happened around about 2020 that have gummed up the works since then. First and foremost, mail delivery was slowed down, on purpose, kind of like dropping from a hare’s pace to that of a tortoise. Much of the relatively newfangled sorting equipment was eliminated within USPS branches, as were many street collection boxes. We started getting mail intended for an address that was spelled sort of close to ours. But let me tell you about our niece’s wedding: Two mailings went out to the crowd of friends and relatives, a ‘save the date’ announcement, followed by the formal invitation. Alas, many recipients got the invitation first. My brother-in-law, father of the bride, hasn’t received his invitation. Not yet, anyhow, and he’s pretty sure he had the right address. We have more evidence that his family may have been cursed by the USPS, however. Neither our aforementioned niece nor her brother received our Christmas card in 2024. They both were returned to sender. They showed up back in our mail in August.
lasalle park
Meet, eat and mingle with local chefs as they serve their favorite breakfast dishes in a one-of-a-kind ‘cheftender’ event for a great cause. The Ultimate St. Louis Breakfast will take place Sept. 27 from 9 a.m. to 11 a.m. at Cedars Banquet Hall, 939 Lebanon Drive. Guests will enjoy samples of sweet and savory delights while visiting with culinary pros:
- Fr. Dominic Garramone, the PBS Bread Monk (pictured)
- Lia Holter, owner of Made. by Lia and winner of TLC’s Next Great Baker
- Mathew Unger, co-host and author of Missouri Comfort
- Anne Carpenter, author of You Had Me at Pie and Soup for You!
- Bethany Budde-Cohen, owner of SqWires Restaurant and Market (pictured)
- Matt Sorrell, mixologist and author of Matt’s St. Louis Food Story
The menu features an array of breakfast classics prepared with a creative twist. Tickets include complimentary food samples, coffee and juice, plus two cocktails. Guests will also have the option to purchase chefs’ cookbooks and other merchandise on-site. Co-sponsored by Fleischmann’s Yeast and Reedy Press, the event will benefit St. Louis ArtWorks, a year-round job training program using art to teach essential life and job skills to underserved youth. Tickets are available at eventbrite.com.
notable neighbors
soulard
In J-school, we were taught that the lead for any newspaper or magazine article should never be a direct quote, but I don’t recall any such brouhaha about a book title. So here, we’re going to do both: South Broadway Athletic Club—St. Louis’s Home for Boxing, Wrestling and Cheap Beer Since 1899 is by Miriam Moynihan and Ryan Buckley, a pair of enthusiastic wordsmiths and proud South St. Louisans. Their recent hardcover volume is also chock-full of original photos that help tell the thoroughly compelling history of a Soulard institution that, despite financial and cultural challenges over more than a century and a quarter, seems to be doing just fine here in the 21st. Which begs the question: What is it about boxing and wrestling that intrigued this woman enough to co-author this book? The club has featured a ladies auxiliary for decades, and Moynihan has been a full-fledged SBAC member for two years now. “We’re up with the times,” she says. “We’re a social club, but contemporary.” For instance, the south city landmark recently donated $10,000 to support ongoing efforts toward recovery from the May 16 tornado in north city and county. SBAC sponsors sports teams—including a Gaelic football team. Plus, the hall, with the vintage neon sign above the door, is available to rent for wedding receptions, and its newly refurbished dance floor is ready to take on all comers. There’s no navel-gazing above the waistbands of boxing shorts here. Boxing is no longer an area of concentration, though monthly Saturday wrestling matches continue to draw excited, excitable crowds. It’s like professional wrestling from the 1970s. “Raucous!” Buckley exclaims. “Everybody’s yelling at the wrestlers, and the wrestlers yell back at them.” Such noisy spectacle may attract audiences as large or larger than just the 300 or so men and women who paid to join SBAC. The Queen of Hearts drawings on Thursdays remain a big draw. And these two writers have the chops—Moynihan is a grad of St. Joseph’s Academy and the School of Journalism at Mizzou; Buckley’s sentence construction started at St. Mary’s High School and is just as solid as the stuff he builds as a full-time union bricklayer and stonemason. Full-time, she is a freelance web designer and writer, while he works outside much of the week. Several vignettes were penned by other SBAC members, and Moynihan and Buckley were among about nine who worked on the project together. Books are available at County Library branches and most any retail outlet. For a really eye-opening look at what’s going on after more than 125 years in and around the newfangled old club just off South Broadway, visit sbacstl.org.
