Goods & Services >>

• Best Junk Store
  Fellenz Antiques
  For this category we're defining "junk" as "salvage of a lost civilization" rather than "ugly Big Bird cookie jars." (For which, see Best Thrift Store.) In other words, one man's junk is Bill Fellenz's "Architectural Artifacts." You won't find Mr. T air fresheners here, but you will find doors... More >>
• Best Florist (1 Comment)
  Botanicals Design Studio
  To some, flowers seem like an indulgence — ephemeral décor that joins the compost heap after the wedding, the corporate meeting or the dinner party. But to Keith McDonnell and Dean Riebeling, flowers are a vital, vibrant component of daily happiness. McDonnell and Riebeling bring... More >>
• Best Toy Store
  Toys "R" Us
  When you're a child and you enter a toy store, it's not just the Christmas-morning rush of "Toys!Toys!Toys!" that staggers you, it's the size of the place. Of course, everything is larger when you're smaller, and as you grow up you rarely experience that feeling anymore. But step into a Toys "R"... More >>
• Best Place for a Kid's Birthday Party
  America's Incredible Pizza Company
  Just for one day, set aside your concerns about childhood obesity and take your birthday boy or girl to this hotbed of juvenile hedonism. The Incredible Pizza Company feeds your crew buffet-style and entertains them in a state-of-the-art "fairgrounds." Situated behind Ronnie's Plaza on a vast... More >>
• Best Art Supplies
  Red Lead PaperWorks
  Some people, especially starving artists, would argue that the best place to buy art supplies is the cheapest place to buy art supplies, and that would be located far from Earth, online. But we argue that the best place to buy art supplies is the liveliest place — one that rouses us to... More >>
• Best Baby Store
  City Sprouts
  There's a reason City Sprouts repeatedly wins this category: It's a store for which women will get knocked up just to open a registry. OK, maybe not. But we have heard of women sans children who've shamelessly purchased one of their diaper bags (some are fashioned from fabric reminiscent of... More >>
• Best Place for a Grownup's Birthday Party
  The Roost
  Host a party at the Roost, and you rule. The second floor of Dogtown watering hole Pat's Bar and Grill, the room is equipped with a pool table, Golden Tee, darts, Internet-linked jukebox, television sets and its own bar. Rent the whole place, bartender included, for $200, and it's yours for the... More >>
• Best Mall
  Chesterfield Mall
  For a mall to be considered a good one, it ought to contain a couple of stores that interest every family member. In a great mall, families should be able to arrive together — and then not have to meet up again all day. Chesterfield Mall fits into this latter category. It's like a carnival... More >>
• Best T-Shirts
  Rina Wear
  The first T-shirt Jeff Michel created said "nipples." Mmm-hmm. "Nipples," printed across the bust, and it sold out at a shop in Ballwin. But of course! A few — oh, seven, or eight — years later, Michel's little T-shirt store that could, Rina Wear, is going gangbusters online. Dude's... More >>
• Best Place to Buy Used Clothing
  Timeless Authentic Garments
  Fashionistas, rejoice! Laney Stout and Jenna Manges, who opened Timeless Authentic Garments (tag) in April, are able to offer something larger-scale vintage clothing suppliers and consignment stores don't: a personal touch. Tag is not a consignment store — Stout and Manges personally... More >>
• Best Green Store
  Home Eco
  In a way, a first visit to Home Eco feels like a rude awakening. Taking in the earth-friendly cleaners, the kitchen and bathroom gadgets that save water, the cork and bamboo flooring that hail from sustainable forests — "guilty" doesn't even begin to describe it. But that's OK, all is well... More >>
• Best Thrift Store
  Goodwill
  There are a lot of Goodwill stores in the metro area, but it's worth holding your nose as you drive past the hazardous basements of Hartford, Illinois (they have their own EPA fact sheet), to get to the one in Wood River. Is it the poisonous air that makes the thrift shopping so darn good here?... More >>
• Best Delicatessen
  Gioia's Deli
  Everything old is new again: Gioia's Deli has been a fixture on the Hill for 90 years — first as a grocery store, then in its present form — but in recent years, it has risen quite high on foodies' must-visit lists. The reason? Gioia's famous "hot salami," or Salam de Testa. Made... More >>
• Best Gift Shop
  Missouri Mercantile
  You've seen the headlines and probably heard the news on television: "Big box" is out, "local" is in. Now take note that Missouri Mercantile is a great place to get hip to the trend. Located in the St. Louis Mills mall, Missouri Mercantile has something for every type of friend, from the foodie... More >>
• Best Boutique
  Femme
  HEY, MAN! Don't skip over this item! Femme, in French, means "woman." And Femme, in Maplewood, means the place you should be shopping for your woman, regularly. Femme stocks the racks with indie lines including Mixie, Free People, Tulle, Petit Pois, Chasen Sully, Voom and — OK, sounds like... More >>
• Best Lingerie
  Jule
  You went and did it, girl — you finally got around to meeting a man who makes you feel like a natural woman. No more too-tight bustiers, no more squeezing your badonkadonk into an uncomfortable thong for the sake of feeling sexy, because this guy's the one who made you realize that... More >>
• Best Bridal Shop
  Berrybridge
  Mother-daughter duo Marie Brauer and Janey Thompson, the owner-operators of Berrybridge, only took over the shop this past December, but you'd swear they've been at it a decade. The women make an immediate and inviting impression: Come in, have a glass of wine, stay awhile. The racks are the... More >>
• Best Place to Buy Sex Toys
  Pure Pleasure Adult Megacenter
  There was a time when you thought that anybody who needed sex toys suffered from a severe lack of imagination. That was when you were in the middle of the Sahara Desert of dry spells and your imagination was pretty well developed because, hey, it was about all you had. But then you hooked up,... More >>
• Best Adult Video Store
  Pure Pleasure Adult Megacenter
  It's a typical Tuesday afternoon downtown. Businessmen and -women are packing into the elevators of the skyscrapers, Cardinals fans are looking for a good bar to pass time before the game and just up Broadway, Pure Pleasure Adult Megacenter is getting its afternoon rush. Don't let the fact that... More >>
• Best Pawn Shop
  AJ & R Pawn Shop
  Stepping into a pawn shop can be a daunting experience for the uninitiated. AJ & R Pawn Shop's friendly neighborhood vibe makes things easy and entices you to take a look around. Staffers chat with customers, many of whom seem to be regulars. You came to sell some no-longer-loved jewelry,... More >>
• Best Dollar Store
  Deal$
  Hello. I am a bottle of Everfresh brand apple juice. I am 32 ounces, and I sell for 100 pennies at Deal$. Now, you must be aware that selling for only a dollar can lead to a fairly serious identity crisis. Do I not taste as good as the name-brand apple juice that sells for more at the local... More >>
• Best Gun Shop
  Uncle Sam's
  It seemed narrow-minded, in our survey of gun shops in the St. Louis metropolitan area, to concentrate only on guns that fire bullets. The world is full of so many other kinds of guns — guns that don't kill but merely injure your enemies, maim them, stop them in their tracks, intimidate... More >>
• Best Tattoo Parlor
  Cheap TRX
  While Cheap TRX is known and lauded for its stellar piercings, for the past four years the shop's tattoo artists may have been St. Louis' best-kept body-mod secret. Yes, the "Cage" downstairs is a mysterious bastion of adult toys and clothes, but the upstairs is an airy, open workspace where a... More >>
• Best Antique Store
  Warson Woods Antique Gallery
  The booths in the Warson Woods Antique Gallery all have a curated look, unlike the usual hoi polloi hodgepodge of lesser antique malls. "Mall" really isn't a classy enough word for this place, or for the dealers here, whom you can sometimes glimpse as they replenish their stock — cardigans... More >>
• Best Body Piercing
  All Star Tattoo
  All Star has been known in St. Louis since 2002 for its stellar tattoos, but the studio, located on Olive Boulevard not far east of I-170, also offers piercings at competitive prices. The shop is comfortingly spotless, the piercers friendly and willing to talk even the most nervous Nelly through... More >>
• Best Tobacconist
  JR Cigars
  Let's say you've just engineered a massive corporate coup, a brilliant secret merger that started a trickle of sweat into white collars across the globe. Let's say it's the last game of the season and you're listening to it on a float trip down the Meramec River. It's poker night.... More >>
• Best Ice Bong
  Harvey Iceman
  By day Harvey Iceman is a champion ice sculptor at Just Add Ice Productions in south St. Louis County, crafting everything from six-foot statues of Rapunzel trapped in a castle to those swans you see at weddings. By night he makes the coolest bongs in town. Literally. Using a chain saw, chisels... More >>
• Best Liquor Store
  Friar Tuck
  OK, so Friar Tuck is in a strip mall. Yes, there's an Applebee's and an Ace Hardware. But look beyond that and you'll find a selection of beer, wine and spirits that ranges from old standards (Bud Light, Schlafly) to hard-to-find (Hite Korean beer, Connemara whiskey). With four locations in... More >>
• Best Wine Store
  33 Wine Shop & Tasting Bar
  Americans love wines that feature animals on the label. Penguins, kangaroos, frogs — it doesn't matter what the animal is, really, as long as the logotype is distinctive. Some of those wines are OK. A lot of them suck. But you can't blame us for being drawn toward the cute and cuddly. Wine... More >>
• Best Car Wash
  Gas House Car Wash
  Some of us remember Saturday-morning car washing as a chore to be feared alongside lawn mowing, weed whacking and gutter de-funking. So it comes as a shock that getting one's car cleaned can be a pleasurable, satisfying, and — dare we say? — psychedelic experience. The Gas House on... More >>
• Best Pet Store
  Lola & Penelope's
  "Isn't it true that dogs can sometimes detect cancer?" a friend asked. He paused, then added, "I really have no idea where I heard that. That probably sounded completely insane." Actually, the notion isn't crazy at all. We've heard it, too. Specifically, we heard it at Lola & Penelope's,... More >>
• Best Hardware Store
  Hanneke Hardware & Industrial Supply
  To enter the store from the street you have to walk up a long ramp. At the top of the ramp sits a rack full of sledgehammers. Even if you don't need one, you stop and look: Those are some nice hammers. Shiny. Sturdy. Honest. You pull one halfway out to test its weight, and put it back when you... More >>
• Best Hardware Store with a Grain Elevator
  Valley Park Elevator & Hardware
  Where can you get a new key cut, purchase pig chow, catch up on the local gossip and take a romp around a 132-year-old (and still serviceable) grain elevator? Valley Park Elevator & Hardware, that's where. Opened in 1876, it's an institution. Richard "Judge" Grellner bought the store back in... More >>
• Best Garden Center
  Bowood Farms
  Perhaps it is our love for all things bison that continually draws us back to Bowood Farms. Or maybe it's that after a long afternoon of trying to decide if the garden would be better served by the Clarksville-grown sweet coneflower that is so fetching or the French lavender that'll draw the... More >>
• Best Flea Market
  Fairmont Flea Market
  Held every weekend, this is not one of the area's giant, overwhelming flea markets. It's manageably old-school, held in the parking lot of a former car dealership, where half the vendors just pull up, pop the trunk, and pile their wares on top of card tables. A fine example of mom-and-pop... More >>
• Best Local Invention
  The FURminator
  Most pet owners are familiar with the scenario. Hair covers the bedspread, the couch, the bathmats. Giant balls of fur roll, tumbleweed-like, across the hardwood floor. These clumps of hair could intimidate even the most robust dust bunny. Shedding is constant, unavoidable — and really... More >>
• Best Bike Shop
  Mesa Cycles
  Gas prices are sky-high. The environment ain't doing so hot, either. Mesa Cycles feels our pain. "If you've got more people that ride, the better off everybody is going to be," says co-owner Adrienne Murphy. This is a serious cyclery, though, so come ready to ride. Prices start at around $370... More >>
• Best Golf Shop
  Golf Discount Superstore
  Amid golf's distinguished history, swathed as it is in emerald greens and peopled as it is with dapper gentlemen, something is seriously lacking: laffs. Golf Discount Superstore recognizes this whiff on the part of other pro shops and fills the divot with, among other novelties, trick golf balls... More >>
• Best Sporting Goods Store
  Dick's Sporting Goods
  If the nation's ever-expanding waistline is any clue, the average American spends more time distinguishing between Ho Hos and Ding Dongs than between shoes for trail hiking versus shoes for backpacking. So it's a good thing Dick's Sporting Goods does it for us. The Dick's outpost located in West... More >>
• Best Running Store (1 Comment)
  Big River Running
  If this was the year you finished the St. Patrick's Day five-mile race, decided to go for a half-marathon and suddenly discovered that running in whatever was on sale at Marshall's wasn't very kind to the feet, it's time to check out a specialty shop. You don't have to travel far these days to... More >>
• Best Skate Shop (1 Comment)
  Plan Nine
  Skate shops, much like the punk bands their clientele shred to on their iPods, tend to grow out of a DIY aesthetic. Most come from humble beginnings and are forced to embrace the business side of things as their reputation and demand increase. This, of course, is where most fail. Luckily, this... More >>
• Best Computer Repair (1 Comment)
  Mac Headquarters
  Every time someone walks through the doors of Mac Headquarters, the trademark hum of an Apple computer booting up plays through the store's speakers. It's almost as if an awakening has taken place, a hard drive in the brain that has sprung to life upon discovering computer care that is... More >>
• Best Electronics for the Audiophile
  The Sound Room
  It's tough being an audiophile. We totally understand. All your friends have learned to run the moment they hear the word "analog" come out of your mouth, in order to avoid the twenty-minute tirade they know is coming. No one in your family cares a fig about the great new tracking scale you... More >>
• Best Home Theater Store
  Hi-Fi Fo-Fum
  What separates a great business from the pack is the people who work there. You can walk into any big-box electronics store, ask a question of any of the 115 college-sophomore salespeople and what you're going to get is one of three things. One, you could get a shrug. Two, you could get an... More >>
• Best Musical Instrument Store
  Saxquest
  The saxophone is an instrument that oozes cool: The sexy curves, the glistening metal and that soul-stirring tone all add up to one defiant, hard-to-ignore piece of equipment. And while it might seem strange to have a music store that only specializes in saxophones, such niche expertise has made... More >>
• Best Furniture Store
  Niche
  Here's the problem with shopping for furniture: Nothing you see in the store will ever look as good in your own home. After maybe a day in your living room, that lovely, nubby velvet couch will be encrusted with cat hair. And forget the cashmere throw and elegant arrangement of vases and beeswax... More >>
• Best CD/Record Store
  Euclid Records
  With music so easy to obtain today via the Internet — whether via legal or, ahem, not-so-legal means — the act of buying an album at an actual brick-and-mortar record store is almost quaint. But Euclid Records resists obsolescence by stocking nearly as much catalog as any online... More >>
• Best CD Store (Used)
  CD Reunion
  Among music hounds, this much is true: A record store is only as good as its dusty bargain shelves. The cardboard boxes crammed into every conceivable empty space at CD Reunion are a treasure hunter's dream. The store's beyond-cheap selection of CDs, label promos and cassettes(!) aren't picked... More >>
• Best Place to Buy Vinyl
  The Record Exchange
  Here's a fun little activity you should try sometime: Make a list of ten or twelve records you'd really like to own. Doesn't matter what genre — just stuff that you really like. Then, head to the Record Exchange. When you come back out three hours later, look at the bagful of records in... More >>
• Best Video/DVD Rental
  Family Video
  Now that most of us who consume movies as if they are a food group subscribe to Netflix, one might find it hard to believe that Family Video, the chain with the 1970s forest green-and-orange color scheme and a name that doesn't exactly shout "foreign films," would be worth a trip to Maplewood... More >>
• Best Book Store (Independent)
  Subterranean Books
  Writer Luc Sante likens looking around a room full of books to taking a journey; as your eye skips from title to title, images spring to mind and connections are made, snippets of data about the author bubble to the surface, times distant and long gone snap back to the present. It's one of... More >>
• Best Book Store (Chain)
  Borders
  The Borders in Brentwood gave us quite a fright last spring, closing up for three months after a water main break ruined the first floor and café. Three months! Valentine's Day to Memorial Day is a long and gloomy stretch. It would have been such a comfort to idle away those long wintry... More >>
• Best Used Book Store
  Greater St. Louis Book Fair
  Here's an existential dilemma: Can a store be a store if it has no walls or regular business hours but has existed for 60 years, stocks 1 million items and regularly turns a profit of more than $250,000 (which it donates to charity)? The inspiration for this question was this year's Greater St.... More >>
• Best Newsstand
  World News Ltd.
  Another year has come and gone and, for now at least, the venerable 41-year-old World News Ltd. is still standing at its longtime downtown-Clayton location. Wherever it ends up, there's no doubt that World News will land on its feet. Where else in St. Louis can one find newspapers from around... More >>
• Best Comic Book Store
  Star Clipper Comics
  Perennial winner of this particular honor, Star Clipper has a very fine staff, an excellent selection of comic books and graphic novels (duh) and a beguiling array of toys that have nothing to do with comics but are fun to poke through nonetheless. Let us talk now about Star Clipper's art... More >>
• Best Yarn Store (1 Comment)
  Knitorious
  Knitters just sit there twiddling their fingers and soon socks or shawls or opera gloves magically fall off the ends of their needles. But a knitter without yarn is a witch without a spell. Cast on your next project with yarn from Knitorious in St. Louis Hills, the best LYS around. Owner Sandy... More >>
• Best Paperie
  Vellum
  Dear Vellum: Some people say sending paper invitations and thank-you notes is so last-century. And then there are those lonely, wintry hearts who think some thingamajig called a "txt" passes for a love letter. We, however, want you to know how much we dig the crisp feel of your card stock in our... More >>
• Best Stationery
  Cheree Berry Paper
  There simply is no substitute for the handwritten note. Many of us long for the days when correspondence was not heralded by a digitized "bing!" When greetings were not wearisome variations on "wut u doin txt me back thx." The stationery from Cheree Berry Paper is so singularly gorgeous that it... More >>
• Best Frame Shop
  Pace Framing
  For a small space, Pace Framing packs a big punch. The always-charming Sandra Marchewa (who is also an accomplished artist) and her business partner Paul Young have operated Pace at its Grand Center location since 2007, after first occupying a basement space in the Philip Slein Gallery for two... More >>