Small Business Spotlights

I've given myself a project: documenting my favorite independent, local St. Louis businesses. To me, one of the greatest issues facing St. Louis in its relative renaissance is the need to forge an identity that lifts it beyond its crippling and longstanding civic inferiority complex. No, we're not Chicago, but we can be subversive, hip, ethnic, brazen, trendy, eclectic, down home, Southern, East Coast, Northern, or Gateway-to-Western all the same. And our local businesses (bars, restaurants, retail, etc.) are the key to piecing together the impossibly complex puzzle that is St. Louis. It is their founders' creativity and talents, in great part, that mold our cultural and social landscape--and that set us apart from other cities.

While this post is little more than a memo to self, I hope to catalog the businesses I've been to in St. Louis that I long for being, as I am, 700 miles removed. Maybe you'll meet your new favorite eatery, watering hole, or shop with this feature. That's my hope anyway!