Meet St. Louis

It's Autumn, which means families all over the region will be heading out to one of the Eckert's locations for a day of Fall fun. Seven generations of Eckerts have farmed in the area for 175 years, and now their land is visited annually by thousands of people. Chris Eckert sat down with Meet St. Louis to talk about how the family business has grown from roadside stands to what it is today, and how...

Is one of the best minds in wine right here in St. Louis? In an often male-dominated industry, Alisha Blackwell-Calvert is breaking stereotypes. The St. Louis native is the beverage director at Reeds American Table in Maplewood. As a certified sommelier, prepping to take the exam to become an advanced sommelier, Blackwell-Calvert is earning national attention. This month, she is featured in Wine E...

Welcome to the oldest organic farm west of the Mississippi! Earth Dance Farms grew from an acre of rented ground to one of the nation's most recognized spaces for agricultural education. Located in Ferguson, Missouri, Earth Dance Farms is the supplier for many of the top-rated restaurants in the region. While it might be easy to overlook the supply chain, Molly and her team remain committed to tea...

Strange Donuts started in 2013, and five years later, is one of the city's favorite spots for a sweet treat. A huge reason for that is the boundless energy and unwavering commitment of founder Jason Bockman. Looking back on his journey, Bockman is still blown away where he is and how he got here, even if he always believed he'd get here someday. When he was a teenager, he was getting into fights a...

Kaylen Wissinger did what so many people wish they could: she left her job and decided to chase her dreams. Working in education, Kaylen realized she wasn't happy, so she left the classroom and dove into the kitchen. Teaching herself to bake, she started out selling cupcakes at the Tower Grove Farmer's Market. From there she became the resident baker at Local Harvest Cafe. Finally, in 2012, she op...

It's been four years since David Sandusky left the fine dining world behind and opened Beast Craft BBQ, and over that time he's steadily built a reputation as one of the best pitmasters in the region. Beast Craft BBQ is continually in the conversation as the best BBQ spot in the St. Louis area, and they've done it by refusing to compromise on ingredients or approach. Their pork steak has become th...

What started as a few hundred followers on Instagram has grown into a booming business that has customers nationwide. Arch Apparel is a fashion company that reps St. Louis through unique designs and clever takes on the city's staples; delivering sports, music and culture-themed products to show off our home town. Funny enough, the man behind the business, Aaron Park, was born nearly 10,000 miles a...

"We want to be the people's place." That's what the guys behind Beer Sauce Shop were after when they opened their beer/whiskey/BBQ/sauce shop in St. Peters, and their customers certainly feel at home when they're there. Beer Sauce shop offers 500+ beers, 25+ small-batch whiskeys, 250+ sauces and rubs, and more than 200 barbecue toys. It's all try-before-you-buy and it's almost entirely fueled by l...

Hey friends! We're on a break this week while we record some upcoming episodes. In the next couple of weeks, we'll have episodes on beer and barbecue from St. Peters and fashion from St. Louis. In the meantime, enjoy our conversation with Gerard Craft, one of the city's most famous chefs. You may not know his name, but if you're a food-lover in St. Louis, you've almost certainly eaten at one of hi...

Loufest has rapidly grown to become one of the best festivals in the region, and will once again bring music, food and art to Forest Park. With acts like Robert Plant, formerly of Led Zeppelin, The Head and The Heart, Modest Mouse, Kacey Musgraves and T-Pain, the two-day celebration of St. Louis once again brings the party to the Gateway City. The producers of St. Louis’ largest music festival tal...

The farmers market is booming and that’s why Sher Castellano is the perfect person to follow on Instagram. From recipe development and stunning photos, the food blogger, photographer, and chef loves all things seasonal. Castellano runs the blog With Food + Love, where she focuses on plant-based and gluten-free recipes. Sher admits she didn’t love St. Louis when she first moved here but tells Meet...

St. Louis has no shortage of breweries, but there was a shortage of specialty bottle shops when Justin Harris and Ryan Griffin opened their doors in 2015. In just three years, St. Louis Hop Shop has expanded into a bigger store front on Cherokee Street carrying hundreds of different beers. But for these two brothers, it's not just about bringing beer to the people of St. Louis, it's about building...

St. Louis isn't just a city, it's a region. That's never been truer than when you're talking about beer. Old Bakery burst onto the scene in 2015 and has continued to make waves since. From their home in the Alton, Illinois bluffs, the certified organic brewery has made beer people crave, and shown up in tap houses, bottle shops and brewpubs across the metro area. It's a far cry from what James Rog...

Mike Sweeney started St. Louis Craft Beer Week 10 years ago and has watched it grow into a destination event over the last decade. Now at 2nd Shift Brewing, Mike remains one of the driving forces behind St. Louis' burgeoning craft beer scene. Taking stock of the incredible event he started, and the ever-expanding beer community in our city, Mike sat down with Meet St. Louis to talk about how far t...

Schlafly Brewery has been around since 1991, a long time in the craft beer world and they’re still working to innovate and shape the future of craft beer. Emily Parker started as an intern and is now the operations manager. She talks to Meet St. Louis about her start in the beer industry, the science behind crafting new beers and why it’s important for more women to get into the craft beer industr...

Have you seen those bright shipping containers along Vandeventer? Wonder what's coming? Well we have great news: it's St. Louis' newest brewery! Rockwell Beer Company announced their plans in 2016, and are set to open this September. Founder Andy Hille sat down with Alexis to talk about the journey of building a brewery from scratch, the brewing scene in St. Louis and how he hopes Rockwell will fi...

Craft Beer Week is here! To celebrate, Meet St. Louis is doing a full week of beer-related episodes. Today we have a preview of our chat with Mike Sweeney, who created St. Louis Craft Beer Week 10 years ago. Mike talks about how the event grew, how the city's beer culture has exploded, and why St. Louis is a destination beer city.

Humans of St. Louis shares the people of our city, one photo and story at a time. It started as a side project for a group of friends at Washington University and sparked a movement. With a camera in hand, Lindy Drew travels the city of St. Louis by bicycle to share the stories of St. Louisians. She explains how she views St. Louis through each individuals story and hopes their work will help othe...

The vegetable-forward restaurant in St. Louis’ Cortex district continues to earn praise locally and nationwide. This month Chef Michael Gallina graces the cover of Food and Wine magazine with the title of Best New Chef. He is one half of the husband and wife team running one of the city’s most innovative restaurants. The restaurant was also a James Beard Award semi-finalist for Best New Restaurant...

From car washes to coffee roasting, Jason Wilson is an entrepreneur constantly working to make St. Louis a better place for all. The owner of Northwest Coffee says coffee is about bringing communities together. Roasting at least twice a week in their Central West end location, they're serving up some of the freshest coffee across St. Louis. The conversation with Wilson dives much deeper than what...

You may not know his name, but if you're a food-lover in St. Louis, you've almost certainly eaten at one of Gerard Craft's restaurants. Sardella, Brasserie, Taste, Pastaria, and Porano have all become favorites for people in and around St. Louis, and they've earned Gerard some of the nation's most prestigious awards. He was a semifinalist for the James Beard Rising Star Chef of the Year 2008 and f...

Introducing Meet St. Louis, a podcast that introduces you to the chefs, brewers, entrepreneurs, and artists making St. Louis one of the most exciting cities in the country. Host Alexis Zotos sits down for conversations with the people putting St. Louis on the map and takes you inside how they got where they are, and how St. Louis shaped what they do and how they do it.