Archive for February, 2010

The hot spot in south city is the new Lafayette Fire Company #1 restaurant, which is owned by 27 firefighters
from St. Louis and surrounding counties, who actually toil in the kitchen.  The entire menu is firehouse-inspired food, including a huge BLT.  Nice touch: diners are asked to donate change from the check to the Backstoppers. If you do, they’ll round out the bill and it shows the donation on the tab.

News that state representative Rachel Storch (D. St. Louis) has announced her intention to wed a financier warmed the columnist’s romantic heart, but one has to wonder what Storch, who is a member of the Democratic National Committee, will make of fiancee Barry Akrongold’s reported campaign contributions to Republican Sen. Norm Coleman, Sen. Mitch McConnell and President George W. Bush and the presidential campaign of John McCain and Sarah Palin. (Offering some hope of marital harmony, Akrongold, who lives in New York, also reportedly contributed to N.Y. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand’s campaign).

l to r Floyd Warman, Gail Johnson and St. Louis County Police Chief Tim Fitch

St. Louis county Chief of Police Tim Fitch has set his sights on encouraging residents in communities to contact the county cops if they find officials on  patrol, who are not licensed police. “We can arrest them for impersonating police officers,” said Chief Fitch.  “It’s like having unlicensed nurses working in hospitals”. Sidled next to police commissioner Floyd Warman over lunch at Chez Leon, Fitch came clean on his own past. “I was arrested three times for speeding at the age of 18,” he admitted. Also there were Clayton Capital Partners CEO Kevin Short and CFO Paula Reeb.  Both were bullish on the company’s financials so far this year compared to the same period in ‘09. The company owns Cathedral Properties and Fitz’s Root Beer.  Nearby, Sabreliner’s Holmes Lamoreaux dined with his colleague Gail Johnson.

Technisonic production studio’s Mike Stroot took a breather with his sons, Matt, Joe and Nick at Beffa’s after having completed a production for the U.S. Army on sexual harassment .  “We did the work through Summit Marketing and it’s a half-hour production using lots of special effects,” said Stroot, a yesteryear feature reporter on KTVI-TV, Channel 2. Next for the Stroots – an image video for Sigma Aldrich’s use in trade shows and conventions.

The Blues gather for Olympics

Most of the St. Louis Blues Hockey players were whooping and cheering at Il Bel Lago Friday, while watching on the bar’s television screen the U.S.  entry  in the Winter Olympics hockey competition, that included the Blues’ Erik Johnson and David Backes.  That was after the team mates gorged themselves with rigatoni a la Oprah and the dinery’s classic hamburgers.  On the sidelines, T.J. Oshe offered that his favorite hangout  “is on my couch at my place in the Central West End.”

Everywhere I go in this new old place, the ghosts of the past call out to me.  Nostalgia, as I’ve mentioned before, is the house disease in our town and it’s a tough habit to kick, even when new businesses rise all around to symbolize the futility and fatuity.  Every restored, renamed, repurposed landmark reminds me of its first name and earlier purpose.  I walked through the downtown shopping area, mentally ticking off the nostalgic sights. Designer pizza, New Age sushi, curry in a hurry, and korma buffet?  Give them credit (where tax) credit is due.  In the old days, one could dine at FE Sandwich Shop, Tutenberg’s, the Forum, Pope’s, Happy Hollow, the Orient, Washington Restaurant, Grecian Gardens, The Whip, The Rathskeller in the Lennox Hotel, the Mayfair Room and Cafe Rouge at the Statler Hotel.  High-tech bowling, slacker hookah, ubiquitous wi-fi, late-winter gelato, and wall-to-wall flat screens?  I recall naughty movies at the Garrick, the World and Towne theaters. There was strip tease at the Grand, where comic Billy “Zoot” Reid held forth and among the headliners: Tootsie Roll, Tinker Belle and Yummy Boobs. Famed stripper Gypsy Rose Lee was once engaged there for a “limited run.”  The columnist knew Gypsy, when she later went “straight” and anchored a t.v. talk show in San Francisco and still later, revealed she gave birth out of  wedlock to a son, whose dad was movie producer Otto Preminger.

Comes now restaurateur Jim Fiala, who offered this on KMOX Radio about his new venue,  “You won’t feel like you’re in St. Louis.”  Are we in Bonne Terre, Jimbo? But, the people who were complacent and said, “nothing ever changes in St. Louis,” are gone. They were the rich and powerful.  David Wohl, Jacob and John Lashly, Boardman Jones, David Calhoun, Lou Werner, Jim Hickok, Sidney Maestre, Gussie Busch, Sidney Shoenberg, Howard Baer, Joe Pulitzer, Jr., John Cella, William H. Danforth, C.C. Johnson Spink, Russell Dearmont, B.B. Culver, J. Arthur Baer, Buck Persons, Morton D. May, John Olin, J. Wesley McAfee, Ethan Shepley, John Wallace, Claude Bakewell, Ben Edwards, Frank Rand, Ben and Katch Wells, Edwin Clark and Edgar Queeny – to name a few. But, there remains an undertow of the old rich, who proclaim they only want a mention in the press at birth or upon death.

A new breed of rich comes to mind – one of whom is 80 year-old Morris Lefton.  Who’s he? Lefton and his wife Marlene enjoy a modest lifestyle, while his firm, the privately-held Metal Exchange, continues to gross in excess of $1 billion a-year. His affinity to aluminum has resulted in processing the metal for the nation of Dubai.  With tenacity and ambition, he built the powerhouse and remains proud to talk about his humble beginning here as a shoe salesman at $22.50 a week.

Money is tight these days, folks, but  some are still reaping it in.

The Los Angeles Times has given our town’s broadcaster George Noory an impressive treatment in its Feb. 21 edition with the handle, “George Noory Brings Talk of the Supernatural Back to Earth,” on his “Coast to Coast” show.  Scribed by David Ferrell, the feature describes the show on which “guests and callers can talk about ghosts, Bigfoot and who shot JFK”. . .Steve Taravella has turned out a tome on the late comedic actress and hometowner, Mary Wickes, who appeared in dozens of musicals at The Muny. The title, “Mary Wickes: I Know I’ve Seen That Face Before,” published by the University Press of Mississippi as part of its “Hollywood Legends” series. . .Cottleville business owner of KidsBeSafeOnline.com Denise Pellow is featured in the March issue of Better Homes and Gardens in which she shares tips on how to stay connected with your children using technology to encourage dialogue and family time. . .Plaudits to Rebecca and Patrick Horvath, whose Frank & Helen’s Pizzeria in U.City is marking its 55th anniversary and still turning out about 500 broasted chickens a week and pizza, named by our region’s bible, St. Louis magazine, as one of the best.

Il Bel Lago was where Bonneville St. Louis Radio Group entertained clients and partners by introing radio show hosts Annie Henson of The Cornbread Morning Show and Bo Matthews of 92.3 WIL, along with The Fast Lane’s D’Marco Farr, Randy Karraker and Bob Ramsey of 101 ESPN.  Bonneville was repped by chief John Kijowski, Kevin Robinson, Keith Kraus, Ben Granger, Kim Grant and Charlie Hartung. . .Pi in the CWE was where a barefooted 25th Ward Alderwoman Lyda Krewson jumped upon a table to tub-thump her legislative achievements at her fundraiser.  Faces in the crowd, who knocked off a total of 45, 16-inch pies such as those named “Lincoln Park,” “North Beach Classico,” “The Hill,” “Bucktown,” “East Loop” and “South Side Classico” were: Pete Rothschild; Annette and Alan Mandel; aldermanic prez Lewis Reed; Vince and Lois Schoemehl; Lance LeComb; Chester Himes; John and Anna Roach; Todd Epstein; Marvin and Linda Nodiff; Jim and Nicki Dwyer and Ald. Steve Gregali.

Opponents (and supporters) of a new casino project in north St. Louis county (for purposes of this column known as “Gene McNary’s Last Gasp Legacy Casino”) may have an opportunity to watch the Missouri Gaming Commission in action on Feb. 24.  The commissioners are planning to meet at the Council Chambers of the St. Louis County Government Building, 41 South Central avenue, at 9 a.m.  Although the Gaming Commission generally does not allow public comment at its meetings, partisans on at least one side of the issue hope to be heard and are collecting comments to be submitted in advance to Leann McCarthy, the Gaming Commission’s public information coordinator.   (Assignment editors at the local daily may copy as usual.)

Food Outreach is not responding to a questionnaire from the Better Business Bureau of Missouri and Southern Illinois (BBB) regarding charity reports and standards.  “Some things weren’t accurate regarding our financials,” said Greg Lukeman, exec director of Food Outreach. “I didn’t know we had to respond. All of our information is available to the public in this office.” Jim Judge of the BBB confirmed, “We’ve sent out the questionnaire and there has been no response.  However, we’re not pointing a figure at them.”  Food Outreach provides nutritional support for men, women and children living with HIV/AIDS or cancer.

A “dream team” of activist lawyers (led by venerable Bevis Shock) may be trying to erect a roadblock in court to developer Paul McKee’s plans to transform a swath of north St. Louis, but McKee himself seems unfazed by their arguments.  While the nay-saying lawyers argued that McKee’s Northside Transformation plan was illusory, McKee and his own lawyers were quietly acquiring additional property for the project on Friday.

Missing from St. Louis county exec Charlie Dooley’s meeting with Prez Obama’s “car czar” Ed Montgomery in Fenton on Thursday
to announce a new joint effort to find new uses for empty auto plants (and new jobs for former auto workers) was Gov. Jay Nixon, who opted to arrive in our town a day earlier to announce a tax credit award in St.Louis City.  The state of Missouri matched funds with the feds, the county and the City of Fenton to make the auto effort possible.