The shortlist

The coolest neighborhoods in St. Louis.

This site exists to give one answer per city, and for St. Louis that answer is Cherokee Street. But three other neighborhoods made it a real argument. Here is the shortlist, ranked, with the reasons each one came close and the reason none of them won.

01

Cherokee Street The pick

Cherokee won by never getting organized. The Grove has developers building seven stories at its entrance. Cherokee has Dead Wax Records next to a taqueria, STL Style House printing city pride on t-shirts, and Little Fox proving a serious kitchen can work down the block from La Manganita. The change here moves at the speed of artists signing cheap leases, not real estate capital signing term sheets. That matters. You can still open something strange on this street and survive. Coffeestamp and The Saturn Lounge exist because of that looseness, not despite it. The runners-up are further along. That is exactly why they lost.

Read the full case for Cherokee Street →
02

The Grove

One mile of Manchester Avenue between Kingshighway and Vandeventer, and nobody calls it Forest Park Southeast. The Grove is the city's best night out. Urban Chestnut for German beer, then Prism, Rehab, or HandleBar, which hosts the World Naked Bike Race every July. The LGBTQ history here is the foundation, not a marketing line, and Grove Fest has held the street together for 18 years. What kept it at number two: the money arrived. A seven-story mixed-use build is going up where a broken parking lot used to be, and the strip reads more polished every year. Great for a Saturday night. Less great for the title.

03

Tower Grove South

Six blocks of Grand Boulevard where you can eat Turkish, Ethiopian, Cantonese, and Vietnamese without moving your car. Grand Bistro took over the old Pho Grand space in 2025, Monstera pours mezcal and natural wine, and The Gin Room put a St. Louis bartender in the Gin Hall of Fame. The Saturday market in Tower Grove Park runs 120-plus vendors, April through November. This is the deepest food neighborhood in the city. It lost because depth is not the same as edge. Tower Grove South is where you eat well. Cherokee is where things happen. If Morganford keeps filling in, ask again in five years.

04

Benton Park

The prettiest brick in south city, protected by Historic District rules that keep the facades honest and the developers patient. Milque Toast Bar just took over the old California Do-Nut building on Jefferson with ten times its former space, and Venice Cafe, covered in mosaics and a giant PeeWee Herman portrait, is the one venue here that could hold its own on Cherokee. The rest skews quiet. Restaurants over bars, renovations over risk, and home values that already skyrocketed. Benton Park made the list on architecture and Venice Cafe alone. It stays at four because a neighborhood needs more than one weird room.

No juries, no sponsors. How we pick explains the rules; Cherokee Street is where they landed.

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