STL Day

On Tuesday we had Chicago Day; yesterday was STL Day (and what a day it was, with baseball-size hail and tornados not too far from us!)! 3/14 is a day to celebrate all things St. Louis, because the city’s area code is 314 (also the first area code we had when we moved to the Dogtown neighborhood of St. Louis over two decades ago). For dinner, we had some of St. Louis’ finest…Imo’s pizza from the freezer section (the best frozen replica of a restaurant pizza we’ve had!), toasted ravioli, and Fitz’s Cardinal Cream soda. And for dessert, I made another St. Louis classic, gooey butter cake:

We still have a whole slew of special days coming up, first next week, and then on through Easter, and even beyond…stay tuned!

Tasty Tuesday–Lunch at Fitz’s

Last week, when we picked Ryan up at the end of his in-town, but not at home, business trip, we went to lunch at Fitz’s in the Delmar Loop in University City. We were very excited to go to this St. Louis icon, as the children and I had never been there before, and Ryan had only been there once the previous week with his co-workers.

The inside is bright and colorful, and I was surprised to learn that there are two floors of seating. The music of choice being played in the restaurant was, of course, oldies, which was very fun. You can even watch the soda being bottled through windows in the back of the restaurant!

I loved the menus. They, like the restaurant, are also colorful and fun, and I love the creative names for the various beverages Fitz’s serves. I think the Ginger Rogers wins both for most creative name, and most creative drink!

The food was delicious. I had the “Black and Bleu Burger,” which, as the name suggests, was Cajun blackened, and had bleu cheese on top. I was surprised to see that there were also two whole, (huge!), onion rings on the burger.

I couldn’t pass up the chance to indulge in one of their frozen concoctions–I chose the root beer shake, which was, of course, made with Fitz’s own root beer. It was so delicious–I wish I could go back there just to have another one of those!

The children’s favorite part of the meal was watching the soda bottling. After we were done eating, we went over to the windows to get a closer look. We saw the whole process, from the bottles being filled and capped, to the syrup and carbonated water being mixed, to the labels being applied. It was really interesting. We were slightly surprised that they weren’t bottling their signature root beer while we were there–instead they were bottling cream soda, which was what Ladybug tried at lunch, (Moose went with the standard root beer; Turkey and Bunny choose the slightly more adventurous grape soda).

It was a pretty expensive meal, at least for us, so we probably won’t be going back there often. Still, it was a fun St. Louis experience, and I’m glad we finally made our way down to Fitz’s!