[local harvest grocery]
There’s good food, and then there’s good food. Local Harvest Grocery store wants people to know the difference. For nearly seven years, the small market has offered seasonal, sustainable and local products to St. Louisans hungry for ethical edibles. “Our mission is to create a vibrant local food community,” says store manager Anne Tkach.
Local Harvest grew out of the Tower Grove Farmers Market, whose market master wanted a nearby venue for farmers to sell their wares all year. The store strives to stock agricultural products from within a 150-mile radius of the city; the outer limit is 300 miles. “Ultimately we try to have things from as close by as possible, to cut down on the carbon footprint of items,” Tkach says. Tower Grove South residents are enthusiastic customers, according to Tkach. “I meet a lot of folks shopping for eggs that are humanely raised and milk with no hormones or antibiotics.”
[tower grove park pavilions]
The brightly painted Victorian pavilions that dot the landscape of Tower Grove Park serve the same purposes they did a century ago: Visitors rest in their shade, tuck into picnics under their awnings and enjoy concerts performed on their stages. From special occasions to Sunday strolls, these ornate relics anchor the 19th-century vision for Tower Grove as a public pleasure park.
Henry Shaw, the Missouri Botanical Garden founder who donated land to the project in 1868, commissioned St. Louis architects Eugene Greenleaf, Henry Thiele, and Francis Tunica to design the pavilions. Since 1872, concerts have been held under the red-roofed music stand encircled by busts of famous composers. Inspired by an ancient Roman bathing facility, the Pool Pavilion was built in 1914 and restored in 1997 with money from the Gateway Foundation, while the Chinese Pavilion has sheet metal dragons on its roof and the Turkish Pavilion has a candy-striped cover.
[amsterdam tavern]
If a bar’s full of guys at 7 a.m. on a Sunday morning, you might assume they’re ending a late night, not starting a new day. But at Amsterdam Tavern, customers arrive early on the weekends to watch English Premiere League football matches—that’s soccer to us Yanks.
Founded in 2008, the pub serves craft beer and sports games at normal hours, too, and hungry fans can bring their own food or order burgers and hot dogs from The Dam, the diner next door. But mornings seem to bring the action. Shortly after sunrise, players in the recreational St. Louis Soccer Club gather with doughnuts to cheer on their teams. “For the average Liverpool game, there will be 25 people there, some wiping sleep out of their eyes, some jumping right into bloody marys and beer,” says club member Eric Freeman.
Freeman says the tavern is involved with the community, more so than the average neighborhood bar. “These guys take that pretty seriously,” he says. Amsterdam Tavern recently hosted a trivia night to raise money for New Dimensions, a youth outreach soccer program. “They’ve always impressed me, not just the fact that they run a good bar,” Freeman says. “They recognize you and know you, and they’re just good people in general.”
By Rebecca Koenig
Photos by Bill Barrett
Pictured: Tower Grove Park Pavilions
