NL Central

Flying Saucer Draught Emporium: Review Preview

By now you are no doubt aware that Flying Saucer Draught Emporium (900 Spruce Street; 314-932-1456) opened in St. Louis earlier this year. You know that the restaurant serves beer -- a lot of beer. And you might have been aware that only this weekend did a few proud St. Louisans try -- but, alas, fa ... More >>

Music Video: St. Louis Native Bhi Bhiman Covers Dire Straits' "Walk of Life"

John Burroughs grad (class of 2000) Bhi Bhiman left St. Louis after high school and now lives in the San Francisco Bay Area. But once a Redbirds fan, always a Redbirds fan -- Bhiman once wrote a song in celebration of former Cardinals star Albert Pujols -- and when RFT Music asked Bhiman to tell us ... More >>

Jenna Fischer, Murphy Lee, Joe Buck and More Lend Their Voices to Citygarden

Since its opening four years ago, Citygarden has become a must-see St. Louis destination. Now the downtown sculpture park is worth a listen, too. See also: - Jenna Fischer Defends Imo's Pizza - Jon Hamm Brags About St. Louis Cardinals Today Citygarden unveiled an iPhone app that offers -- among ... More >>

EPA to Recognize St. Louis Cardinals for Reducing Food Waste

Don't feel too guilty about not finishing your nachos at Busch Stadium. Chances are the leftover chips (and other half-eaten scraps) will make their way to St. Louis Composting for use as lawn and garden food. A similar second chance exists for unsold food at the ballpark. It is donated to Operati ... More >>

Red War

Opening Day: Thirty Cardinals Fans Who Are So Excited They Just Can't Handle It

It's Opening Day, St. Louis! Everyone is totally completely losing it this Monday morning because they are just so friggin' excited! (Even if the police are watching you, and there's no more free parking.) We're pretty excited here at Daily RFT and thought we'd share that excitement with you, dear ... More >>

Opening Day: No Free Parking...And the Police Are Watching You!

Nothing on Planet Earth can get in the way of having a really awesome Opening Day today, right? Wrong! Here's a quick public service announcement for you: No more free parking! In the past, the city has offered free parking to fans on the most important day of the year for St. Louis, but apparentl ... More >>

Andrew Jennrich of Farmhaus Sees St. Louis on the Precipice of National Recognition

This is part one of Gut Check's Chef's Choice profile of Andrew Jennrich of Farmhaus. Part two, a Q&A, will be available Thursday. Part three, a recipe from Jennrich, will be published on Friday. For many years, the migration went like this: Talented young St. Louis cooks, eager to make their bones ... More >>

New Favorites, Old Friends: An Updated Guide to Restaurants in Lindenwood Park

St. Louis' neighborhoods are gems in their own right: full of history, great people and, as far as Gut Check is concerned, fantastic food. Each week we'll take you into a specific neighborhood and point you in the direction of the best places to grab some bites.

Answers to the Riverfront Times 2012 News Quiz

In January Riverfront Times published its annual "News Challenge" -- 78 multiple-choice questions testing how well readers paid attention to current events over the past twelve months. Within a week, more than 100 of you submitted your answers to us. A few weeks later a dozen readers e-mailed a simi ... More >>

Mad Hatter Pub Crawl Celebrates Crazy Hats and Booze

In Alice in Wonderland, the Mad Hatter drank tea. In St. Louis, Mad Hatters drink booze. On Saturday, March 30, Fuel, a local social volunteer group, is hosting its annual Mad Hatter's Pub Crawl. Drinkers and revelers will travel by bus (and two ferries) across St. Louis and into Illinois boozing a ... More >>

[VIDEO] Flying Saucer Opening Marred by Evil Royals Fan Plot; Kicks Off Most Important Drinking Contest of All Time

Gut Check has uncovered a dastardly scheme to ruin the new Flying Saucer Draught Emporium (900 Spruce Street, St. Louis; 314-932-1456) downtown and spit in the face of every Cardinals fan in town. Confronted with the results of our investigation, we asked the man at the center of this travesty -- o ... More >>

Photos: Cardinals Finally Break Ground on Ballpark Village, Release New Renderings

Finally. This morning, the St. Louis Cardinals officially broke ground -- shovels and all! -- on the much-anticipated, much delayed development of Ballpark Village, the mixed-use seven-block project just north of Busch Stadium. The Cardinals, working with development partner Cordish Companies, say ... More >>

Chris Carpenter's Five Best On-Field Obscenities

In honor of the (possible), end of Chris Carpenter's time in St. Louis -- not to mention a potentially career-ending situation -- we here at the Riverfront Times thought it was high time we took a look back at all the biggest moments from his tenure here.No, not his tenure as the staff ace for one o ... More >>

Has Chris Carpenter Thrown His Last Pitch for the Cardinals?

Stop me if you've heard this one before: Chris Carpenter may not pitch for the Cardinals this year.  Now, after hearing that, you may very well be casting about your home, car, or office, looking for a calendar, hoping against hope you haven't fallen into some kind of sinister wormhole to the ... More >>

Videos: Stan Musial Honored at Funeral Service Featuring Bob Costas Eulogy

Since news broke that St. Louis icon Stan Musial has died, fans have had many opportunities to pay tribute to the late, great Cardinal. And on Saturday, fans got to say a final goodbye to the baseball legend, packed inside the Cathedral Basilica in St. Louis for Stan the Man's public funeral servic ... More >>

Cardinals 101: This Week's Bestseller List

Here's your weekly St. Louis bestseller list for the week ending January 20, as compiled by the St. Louis Independent Booksellers Alliance and based on sales at Left Bank Books, Main Street Books and Subterranean Books. Even though hockey's back, this is the time of year when we yearn most for bas ... More >>

Nationally-Renowned Funnyman Tommy Johnagin Comes Home to St. Louis, Fresh Off of Appearances on Letterman and Conan

Most entertainers can point to a few unique moments in their careers where in a matter of minutes, things changed. These brief moments reshape an entire career, a life -- and if a few things click, an entire generation of fans. When tracking the career trajectory of comedian Tommy Johnagin, these un ... More >>

2013 RFT Web Awards Winners

It's been said that employees engaging in social media while at work cost the U.S. economy $650 billion a year in lost productivity. That's $4,452 per company, and it doesn't even factor in the economic losses from plain, old Web surfing. Throw that into the mix, and good lordy: No wonder the econom ... More >>

Five Cardinals File for Arbitration

It's that time of year again, when salary arbitration comes to the forefront, as players across baseball file for a raise. It's not quite as exciting as the run-up to the annual Winter Meetings, and certainly not as much fun as when the countdown to Pitchers and Catcher Report Day begins in earnest, ... More >>

Musicians Squawk As City Quadruples Price of a Street Performer Permit

On January 1, the city quietly quadrupled the price of a busker's permit from $25 to $100 annually -- and Charles Haller of the Bates Street Folk and Blues Band feels compelled to make some noise. "It's going to diminish the music on the streets of St. Louis," he predicts to Daily RFT. Haller con ... More >>

There's Always a Cardinal on the St. Louis Bestseller List

Here's your weekly St. Louis bestseller list for the week ending January 6, as compiled by the St. Louis Independent Booksellers Alliance and based on sales at Left Bank Books, Main Street Books and Subterranean Books. There are some changes to the local bestseller list this week. For one thing, fo ... More >>

Musicians Squawk As City Quadruples Price of a Street Performer Permit

On January 1, the city quietly quadrupled the price of a busker's permit from $25 to $100 annually -- and Charles Haller of the Bates Street Folk and Blues Band feels compelled to make some noise.  "It's going to diminish the music on the streets of St. Louis," he predicts to Daily RFT. Haller ... More >>

Cards Get Hot Early

PHOTOS: Cardinals Uniform Re-imagined as a Soccer Jersey

Fact: You can purchase an official pair of Cardinals thong underwear at the team store at Busch Stadium. We know this because a friend of ours (with questionable taste) recently bought a pair for a female acquaintance as a wedding gift. All of which begs the question: Given that the Cardinals will ... More >>

Your Weekly St. Louis Bestseller List

Here's your weekly St. Louis bestseller list for the week ending December 30, as compiled by the St. Louis Independent Booksellers Alliance and based on sales at Left Bank Books, Main Street Books, Pudd'nhead Books and Subterranean Books. This week's bestseller list displays the effects of final-de ... More >>

What St. Louis Taught Me

This is my last day as music editor of the Riverfront Times. It's been 21 months and two weeks since I moved to St. Louis from Denver, and there has not been a more dynamic stretch in my life. My predecessor, Annie Zaleski, offered me some tips when I started, just as her predecessor had. Daniel Hi ... More >>

[VIDEO] Mizzou Antler Jerks Off Behind His Own Team's Free Throw

Just like Chicago Cubs fans, the Mizzou Antlers are a classy bunch. So classy, in fact, that these infamously mischievous student super-fans will happily photobomb a free throw taken by their own beloved Missouri Tigers. At one point in last night's match-up between Mizzou and South Carolina State,& ... More >>

Your Weekly St. Louis Bestseller List

Here's your weekly St. Louis bestseller list for the week ending December 9, as compiled by the St. Louis Independent Booksellers Alliance and based on sales at Left Bank Books, Main Street Books, Pudd'nhead Books and Subterranean Books. According to the Mayan calendar, the world's about to end thi ... More >>

RIP The Sporting News -- After 126 Years, Finally Irrelevant

The Sporting News has never had a swimsuit issue. For most of the first century of its existence, it didn't even have color photography. Instead, it had box scores. Lots and lots of box scores. And a special section for participants in fantasy leagues. Yes, TSN, founded in St. Louis in 1886 by the ... More >>

Your Weekly St. Louis Bestseller List

Here's your weekly St. Louis bestseller list for the week ending December 2, as compiled by the St. Louis Independent Booksellers Alliance and based on sales at Left Bank Books, Main Street Books, Pudd'nhead Books and Subterranean Books. This week, there are three books on the local St. Louis inde ... More >>

Your Weekly St. Louis Bestseller List

Here's your weekly St. Louis bestseller list for the week ending November 25, as compiled by the St. Louis Independent Booksellers Alliance and based on sales at Left Bank Books, Main Street Books, Pudd'nhead Books and Subterranean Books. This week's bestseller list proves that Cardinals baseball a ... More >>

The St. Louis Cardinals: Firmly in the 'Have-Nots'

The Los Angeles Dodgers just sent a message to the rest of baseball, and that message is that the big, bigger, biggest money in baseball is no longer confined to the East Coast axis of evil. The Dodgers are currently engaged in the late stages of negotiating an enormous new television deal, wit ... More >>

Mark McGwire Gamble Paid Off For Cardinals; Will Successor Prove The Same?

So apparently it's become like a thing now for Cardinals sluggers to leave the team in the offseason and head for Southern California. Last year it was Albert Pujols, aka the Second Greatest Cardinal (and who will never, ever reach number one on that list), leaving the Redbirds and taking his talent ... More >>

Ernie Hays, Longtime Organist for St. Louis Cardinals, Dead at 77

Local legend Ernie Hays has passed away at the age of 77. Hays manned the stadium organ for the St. Louis Cardinals for 40 years before retiring prior to the 2010 season. In an age when more and more ballparks use recorded pop songs to entertain fans, Hays was an outlier who insisted on playing show ... More >>

Your Weekly St. Louis Bestseller List

Here's your weekly St. Louis bestseller list for the week ending October 21, as compiled by the St. Louis Independent Booksellers Alliance and based on sales at Left Bank Books, Main Street Books, Pudd'nhead Books and Subterranean Books. In an exciting new development in the local book world, reade ... More >>

The Lohse Legacy

Okay, so it isn't exactly as exciting as The Bourne Legacy, but it works better from an alliterative angle, right? Of course it does. Plus, so far as I know, Jeremy Renner isn't any good at baseball. So we've got that going for us right off the bat. (If Jeremy Renner is actually an ex-minor league b ... More >>

10 Ways to Console Yourself Now That The Cardinals Have Choked

So the Cards choked. It happens -- not to the Cards, of course, not usually. But life goes on. The World Series starts tonight, and the rest of the world has already forgotten about us. 1. Gather at Busch Stadium. Bring candles. Sob, "It shoulda been us!" Experience catharsis with your fellow membe ... More >>

Your Weekly St. Louis Bestseller List

Here's your weekly St. Louis bestseller list for the week ending October 14, as compiled by the St. Louis Independent Booksellers Alliance and based on sales at Left Bank Books, Main Street Books, Pudd'nhead Books and Subterranean Books. Sometimes the bestseller list contains random, unexplainabl ... More >>

Goodbye To the 2012 Cardinals

It felt like 1996 all over again, you know? I'm not sure how many of you out there really remember that year, the first of Tony La Russa's tenure as manager, but it was an interesting season. The Redbirds had spent the first half of the 1990's sucking quite badly, struggling under the weight of ... More >>

The St. Louis Cardinals and Let's Get It Started: How Songs Choose the Moment for us

Every year the United States graduates hundreds of thousands of students who will bawl over, who will treasure forever, who will associate their most heightened and individual and important memories with, a song called "Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)"--a song that has no specific connection to th ... More >>

A Brief Game Seven Pitching Primer

So it's come down to this yet again. Another deciding game, the third such win-or-go-home contest the Cardinals have taken part in this postseason. They smacked the Atlanta Braves in the mouth in the first scheduled play-in game in major league history. They engineered one of the greatest comeb ... More >>

The Smashing Pumpkins at the Chaifetz Arena, 10/18/12: Notes, Photos and Setlist

Thematically, the Smashing Pumpkins is a very predictable band. For those familiar with its imagery and history, thoughts of the band conjure up visions of moons and stars and other celestial entities. But last night, Billy Corgan had a lot of love to give to St. Louis. Literally. Corgan sang the ... More >>

2012 RFT St. Louis Sports Media Power Rankings

See the Power Rankings Chart

8 More Cringe-Inducing Fan-Made Songs About the St. Louis Cardinals

Every sport has its fan-written songs, but in Major League Baseball today, it seems like no community seems to write as many as St. Louis Cardinals fans. And most of them are awful. See Also: - Cardinals World Series Fan Songs: A Remix, A Rally Squirrel And A Career High Point - A Whole New Ballga ... More >>

Kyle Lohse Lays It On the Line

In just a little while now, the Cardinals will take on the San Francisco Giants in game three of the NLCS, with the series moving here to the heartland. The Redbirds have been brilliant in Busch Stadium this season, winning 50 games and, frankly, looking like a com ... More >>

Buy One Big Mac, Get One For 25 Cents On Cardinals' Game Days

Miracles happen every day. The Cardinals are in the National League Championship Series, and on every game day, St. Louis area McDonald's locations are offering a deal on Big Macs. Presumably to give new meaning to "cardiac Cardinals." Including today, that's five opportunities to buy bargain-price ... More >>

Giant Spider Takes Over the Arch!

BREAKING! A gigantic spider has ascended the Gateway Arch and is holding the downtown riverfront district hostage.

Cards Hold On Against Giants; Take 1-0 NLCS Lead

It went about as well as one could have possibly hoped for the Cardinals in game one of their National League Championship Series matchup against the San Francisco Giants. The offense broke through for a big chunk of runs against Madison Bumgarner, and the pitching staff flipped the expected script, ... More >>

Previewing the Cardinals and Giants

On Friday night, the Cardinals managed one of the greatest (if not the greatest), comeback in postseason baseball history, erasing a six run deficit en route to defeating the Washington Nationals. It was the largest deficit any team has ever overcome in the playoffs, and in typical Cardinal comeback ... More >>