Happy Third Birthday Citygarden!
Citygarden in downtown St. Louis has become such as important place it’s hard to think it’s only been open for three years. The dedication took place on June 30, 2009.
Citygarden is an urban park and sculpture garden in St. Louis, Missouri owned by the City of St. Louis but maintained by the Gateway Foundation. It is located between Eighth, Tenth, Market, and Chestnut streets,in the city’s “Gateway Mall” area. Before being converted to a garden and park, the site comprised two empty blocks of grass. (Wikipedia)
These two blocks were completely passive before, and mostly overlooked.
Overall Citygarden has been a huge success, attracting residents and tourists. The only part that wasn’t a success was the restaurant, The Terrace View. From September 2011:
Jim Fiala has announced that he’ll be closing The Terrace View when the lease expires at the end of the year. The restaurant will go to lunch service only Mon. through Fri. from 11am until 2pm beginning Oct. 1, and the space will still be available for private events through the end of the year. (Feast)
In the above article Fiala said he couldn’t get enough evening customers. My personal experience on numerous visits was the food was good but the service was lacking. I still think about an excellent ratatouille I had once but that dinner with a friend is most remembered by the poor service. The menu was also wrong for the location, too upscale.
The space was only vacant for a few months though:
Unlike Jim Fiala’s Terrace View, which previously occupied the restaurant space in Citygarden, Joe’s Chili Bowl (808 Chestnut Street; 314-241-7070) is a complete departure from upscale dining. The surroundings remain exquisite, featuring views of Market Street and Busch Stadium, but the vibe is much more casual.
Joe’s Chili Bowl opened for lunch on April 13, and it started breakfast service this past Tuesday. General manager Roxanne Williams says that further expansion to a late-night menu will come slowly with time.
The menu at Joe’s Chili Bowl is more appropriate to families with kids wet from playing in the water features, I wish them well.
— Steve Patterson
Love the piece on Citygarden, a great asset to my end of downtown. As I’ve been working across the street since 2004, some thoughts on the restaurant and why it didn’t succeed. Lunch in downtown is dominated by workers, and the menu actually was probably in the right range for what it was, slightly upscale and a nice reprieve from the everyday. However, they should have had a walkaway menu for the garden visitors, consisting of pre-made sandwiches and snacks, etc.for the families. Instead they very much pretended that the garden was a backdrop for them and the people that visted only a coincidence.
As for the chili bowl. Really, chili in the summer. The thought makes me not want to go there, despite knowing that they have other menu items. I want summer salads and a small carafe of wine back. Such a better menu to fit in patio dinning.
Now let’s expand Citygarden one block further west.
Absolutely agree, relocate Twain sculpture and bring in Missouri Botanical Garden to finish out the space.
The food at Joe’s Chilli has horrible, straight-from-the-sysco-truck food. What a lost opportunity.