Food Is Love | Cherokee Street | Season 2023

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St. Louis is fortunate.

It's not hard to find little niches and streets that has evolved their own character.

The many different neighborhoods reflect the diversity and charm of the people who lives here and as a result, drawn the attention of people looking for somewhere to spend their free time.

Whether it's the theater district or the nightlife on Manchester, there are streets all over the city that has their own brand of charm, but none of them are quite like Cherokee Street.

As a chef, I need to stay curious in order to evolve.

For me, that means looking beyond a good meal to learn more about who made it and what inspires them to cook.

La comida es amor Every great city has great food.

I'm going on a journey around the world.

Right here in St. Louis.

I'm on a quest to find passionate chefs who cook from the heart.

"That's exciting" "And I think it's the best" To prove that food is love " it's going to be delicious."

Food is love.

Love your food.

Cherokee street has long been a place where immigrant populations have felt safe.

At first glance, you might think it's a Spanish neighborhood and you wouldn't be wrong.

But when you start to look a little closer, you realize that the area is made up by a very eclectic mix of people.

Two of those eclectic people happen to be friends of mine.

Ron and Amanda both live here in the neighborhood and are outspoken advocates for Cherokee Street.

I first met them when they visited my restaurant in Southern Illinois.

Amanda also has a home and business in wine country there.

And when they're in town, they always make a point to stop in and see me.

Today, they have agreed to give me a day trip down Cherokee Street to eat a little and see a little of what's going on.

So you have a love of Cherokee Street?

Of course.

I know this already.

Why is that?

My first foray to the street was like ten years ago, maybe twelve years ago, and came down here for a Cinco festival.

And then a few years after that, I actually moved down here because I found it to be a place where folks were just accepting.

I found it an easy place to go ahead and conduct business and find partners to network and do business with as well.

So I ran my business out of Nebula down here.

When I got asked a few years later to join one of the boards because they thought I was maybe smart or something ..and I fooled them, that's when it really started happening.

I started realizing what I could contribute to the street because of what I had gotten from the street.

Most of my friends live and work on this street.

The people who invest time in this neighborhood are really thinking about all those things.

Not just about how to make an awesome business, right?

But how do you make an awesome business in a place that welcomes everybody, right, that has not just diversity of skin but of thought and who you are and how you want to represent yourself.

So, as it turns out, Cherokee Street isn't just cool and hip.

There's opportunity to be had here as well.

When people talk about community and what it really takes to build community, these are a bunch of folks who are from all parts of the world that have decided to come down here on Cherokee Street, right?

And that we are finding out,... is it perfect?

Is it not perfect, but what it really is to form a community, right?

And it takes love.

The street culture on Cherokee goes beyond food and ethnicity.

Theater and performance have a home here at The Golden Record where Ron is a part of the theater culture himself.

This venue is called The Golden Record.

And upstairs, my theater company, we do shows.

One of the things that we do, we're known for is we do parodies of popular movies.

Right now, we're about to launch Kill Bill one or two live parody.

And that's what it is.

It's a shortened version of it.

It's 20 or so actors on stage doing their best to go ahead and present you our version, our take of what Kill Bill feels like right now.

As we begin pulling the layers back, the surface impression ahead of this place is fading away.

Cherokee street seems like a forward thinking community solving its problem in its own way.

There's quite a few businesses here that you wouldn't expect from antique stores to this place.

Impossible sensing.

So literally on the street, there's a rocket scientist and some other folks that are part of the neighborhood and they actually have a contract with NASA and maybe others too.

I don't know all their stuff.

But to go ahead and basically they use lasers to go ahead and find life, right?

And so this is where their office is.

They chose to put their office on Cherokee Street.

It's pretty cool because you think about down on the corner, you have Nebula and then you have Impossible Sensing, and then you have The Golden Record.

And then you have Earthbound beer so this is a space theme that's happening on the street.

The whole street is dotted with little bars and places to eat.

There's definitely food options over here.

One of those places is a small sandwich spot called Elaine's.

Hi, I'm Elaine.

Hi, Elaine.

My name is Lasse.

Elaine is nice enough to show me around her space.

Spicy tomato, black beans, cream of broccoli.

And this is beef and barley.

Love them all.

It might not be soup season, but I'm kind of known for my soup.

Like most business owners you talk to here, Elaine has a lot of pride to have her business on this street.

The neighborhood, I knew I loved everything about it, but I didn't realize how much.

How awesome the customers are.

Everybody's super understanding.

If you run out of something, they're not going to be upset, they're going to be understanding.

They want to see you win.

They want to see everybody down here succeed.

Everybody's here to support each other.

It's a huge deal to see and feel that from all your neighbors.

There is something about it.

It has some soul and you don't find anywhere else.

True.

I mean, I've always thought this was such a great area down here.

Yeah, I agree.

Everybody on the block is very consistent with their hours.

And we've got some really great shops on the block and everything.

It's a tight knit little feel.

I love it.

Wow.

Neighborhood.

There's love in the neighborhood.

There is.

This is just one of the many places to get food and we haven't really walked all that far yet.

Next up, we're headed for some pizza at a place called Yaqui on Cherokee Street.

So in the city of St. Luis if you put a wood fire oven in a kitchen, it's just called a fireplace.

It's just a kitchen fireplace.

Everything that's cooked is cooked in the oven.

So it was minimal, I mean, it was expensive oven to put in there, but it was minimal.

Like kitchen set up the quickest line from start to finish.

We love getting wines and cocktail here.

The people are really friendly.

But one of the things that I love is the live music, especially the jazz, the country music.

It seems like anywhere we go, Ron and Amanda has friends waiting.

We live upstairs.

And the jazz started when one of our good friends introduced us to this new piano player that was coming to St. Louis to play piano music.

Because all he wanted to do since he was four years old was play St. Louis boogie woogie jazz.

We always thought St. Louis is cool, but I was like, A New Yorker is coming here to play music and he wants to come here to play music.

It opened our eyes up because once he started playing his first Saturday night here, I'll never forget it was the first time that we turned a corner of not just making money, but like, having people be regulars and feel welcome here.

We really saw that the growing Cherokee Street market was not just jazz, but was just this Americana style country.

The same kind of jazz crowd likes, this Americana.

Because, Americana is jazz too right?

I mean, it's American music.

Food is love.

Food is love.

The pizza here is amazing.

I don't know how this is my first time, but I'm going to make a point to come back here again.

Everyone is so welcoming, and the live jazz and country music is a mainstay.

This place gave off a West Nashville vibe to me.

Not what I expected to think at the start of this, but alas, the journey continues.

What a cool spot.

Yeah, man.

Yaqui is the best.

So there's more there's more to see.

Okay.

And more to eat.

And more to drink.

Okay.

More to eat and drink.

I'm ready.

And next, we are going head first into the dive bar experience at B-sides, where I'm promised a burger and a Frito Pie.

I have heard that Chef Lasse here has not had a Frito Pie.

I've never had a Frito Pie.

Never.

Here we go.

All right, let's do it.

This is B-Side.

This is B-Side.

When you ask the question, is it a dive bar or a hole in the wall, this was the place I was saying, like, because this could be a hot debate.

So this is the B side.

Yes.

For a long while in the street, about 9:00, most food shuts down in the street, most of it B side they have burgers and they have Frito Pie, which you should probably try one of those for sure.

Hey, Rob.

What's up, man?

Hi, Rob.

We were talking about whether or not this was a hole in a wall place or a dive bar.

They're both, they're one and t. So it's a hole in the wall / dive bar This hole in the wall has holes in the wall.

But I kind of wanted a place that's more to my liking, which is dirty, dingy, hole in the wall thats cheap to drink at and most generally, the people there are cool.

What do you want on your burger bud?

Ill do Cheese Kind of cheese you want we've got cheddar Swiss, American.

Can you share your secret?

I mean, everything just gets grilled, seasoned, and then it sits in a steam well full of onions.

The onions are, like, slowly sauteed all throughout the evening.

Okay.

After about two days, you get French onion soup.

Which makes the burgers taste better All right, well, we'll have to try that for sure.

And the Frito Pie, he hasn't had a frito pie Frito Pie is like a regional thing.

Usually the way it's done is just open a bag of Fritos, throw in some chili.

It's basically like walking nachos or tacos.

But the way we do it's all different things.

Plus, nobody knows about Frito Pie is really insane.

Yes.

Right?

Yeah.

But it really is a staple in the neighborhood for cold beer, a good burger to eat, dope music.

They have some of the best DJs in town come here and hang out and spin back there.

I'm only in this just for my neighborhood.

I can tell when I saw how he was making the burger that it was going to be good.

So it's a bed of Fritos housemade vegan chili, cheddar cheese, house sauce, lettuce, tomato, onion, jalapeno.

Now, does this one have the burgers on it or not?

Yeah And it's got a burger on it.

Okay.

I mean, I've never been anywhere where the owner is, the bartender, the cook, but I mean, that's very unique because you know that you care about everything that goes out here.

There's something about a place like this, a character quality that somehow embodies the eclectic street itself.

And it really is Like you said, it's the people who've opened it.

It's their personality in the place, and that's what we're buying all day long.

Yeah.

I don't know.

I've always grown up in, like, restaurants and bars.

This is the kind of place every town needs and the kind of place locals don't want you to know about for fear of attracting a crowd.

On a Monday through Thursday when people are down here, who aren't normally down here We're like, oh, hey, good to see you.

Not really.

You guys need to come down here on the weekend.

Okay.

This is our time.

Lasse, are you ok?

I think you two are a bad influence on me.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Welcome, Cherokee Street.

Welcome to Cherokee Street.

To wrap up my mini tour of Cherokee Street before my tour guides are called away for business, we are stopping in for a drink at another of the street's, popular watering holes, The Whiskey Ring.

There are lots of places on the street, and we've been to a few of them.

One of my favorite places, my watering hole would be the Whiskey Ring.

Okay.

There's lots of different stuff that I have been a part of here.

I know the owners, been on vacations with them and stuff like that.

It's family, so come and meet some of them.

I hope some of my family members are here.

Okay.

You get to meet some of them, and you can get some H20 Croutons.

Yeah.

I'm Katie Brown.

I'm the bar manager of the Whiskey Ring.

You can absolutely tell there's a spirit here that I haven't seen anywhere else, and everybody is on the same page.

I never feel out of place.

I never feel like anything other than accepted and loved for who I am.

And I can be whoever I want to be here.

Its easy to be here.

It's easy to be here.

The Ring is it's easy to be at the ring.

Right.

And I think a lot of folks who come here are like minded in the sense that we can all relate to things we've believed in or cared about in our past and that we awakened to other ways to be that are a lot more inclusive and a lot more affirming to people around us and that you get that on Cherokee Street.

I'm told there is a country western night here that could be fun.

I have some great western wear.

I need to come to one of them.

I don't have a hat.

We get your hat.

Thanks to Ron and Amanda, both my stomach and heart are full.

It was a fun day out and my perspective of Cherokee Street has completely changed.

Food is great here.

The bar scene is great.

The music is great.

This is in the middle of the night.

It is nice and quiet here.

People are just out here having a good time.

But really what strikes me is this feeling of community they have here where they help each other.

Aside from the plays Ron's theater company puts on there, the Golden Record is also an outlet for live music shows.

And tonight I'm meeting up with country musician and songwriter Kendell Marvel, who has pinned hits for the likes of Chris Stapleton, George Strait, and countless others born and raised in Southern Illinois.

Today he's counted as one of the songwriting elites of Nashville.

He's here tonight as part of a tour to promote his latest work.

Now I get to play tour guide, and I'm taking Kendell down the street for pizza at Yaquis to talk about what he eats on the road.

And selfishly, I'd like another slice of pizza.

What a cool neighborhood this is.

I don't even know what this neighborhood is called, but it's fantastic.

Yeah.

I mean, the diversity here is so great.

And when it comes to music and food right.

You know it's going to be good.

Absolutely.

Because you got everything here.

Yeah.

The best restaurants and the best music is usually a melting pot culturally.

Do you like pizza?

I love pizza.

Pizza here is very good.

It's interesting.

We're both from Southern Illinois.

So when did you leave Southern Illinois?

In 98.

July of 98.

Okay.

So I came to Southern Illinois in 97.

Okay.

And I opened my restaurant in 98.

Okay.

So you heard about it and my terrible food and you left town.

I knew you were coming i was like i got to go.

When did you know that the music thing is going to happen or you didn't?

I had no idea.

So you moved to Nashville just on a whim.

It was all that I could do.

It's like I either had to stay local and just be content with playing the bars that are now closed down that I used to play when I was a young man or try to take the next step just like anything else.

Do you want to stay in your hometown and do it, or do you want to go out and try on some other people?

So how long time did it take until it actually worked?

I mean, was there a struggle in the beginning?

No, I actually wrote my first hit song the day that I moved.

Really?

Yeah, I did.

Pretty rare feat.

I don't know if anybody else had ever done it, and it wasn't because I was any better than anybody else moved to town.

I was just in the right room at the right time with the right guy, and we wrote a song.

It just got recorded immediately and became a big hit song and changed the guy who recorded it, Gary Allen changed his career he told me, and it definitely gave me a career.

I didn't have a career at all before that.

I came up through the ranks with guys like Jamie Johnson and Chris Stapleton, Luke Bryant, a bunch of guys who later became very successful recording artists.

At that time, we were all just songwriting buddies.

We'd drink beer and write songs, and we still got those relationships.

I still can write with those guys.

Man, this is a fantastic little corner spot.

I don't know anything about the restaurant business, but every time I go in a place like this, I'd like to say I would do this at the end, as my next chapter.

When we're traveling on the interstate, a lot of times we have to pull over and eat at what we have.

But once we get to where we're going to do a show, they're usually in really cool neighborhoods like this, especially when you're doing the kind of tour and we are right now, clubs.

Where do the locals eat.

I want to go eat where the locals are.

We had some great Thai food last night in Fort Smith, Arkansas.

Just the guy who run the joint was like, man, go check that Thai place over there.

Its been there forever.

In Arkansas.

Fort Smith, Arkansas.

It was fantastic.

I'd like the supreme, okay.

And I'll get something different that way we can ying and yang.

Yes.

So what is Nashville known for food wise?

There's some great restaurants.

There a lot of meat and threes.

Thats been there for a long time.

All of a sudden, now they have this Nashville hot chicken.

My go to place is in neighborhood called Sylvan Park.

It's called Park Cafe.

Been there a long time.

And it's just a good, consistent, great little happy hour.

You can go there and get a little personal pizza or you can get a decent steak.

It's just been there a long time.

There's a few places.

The Southern steak and Oyster Bar downtown is a great high end place.

Im going to have one more slice.

You did so much better than me on the salad.

Well, it was good.

Yeah.

I'm an olive freak anyway.

This was fun.

Kendall was such a nice guy and an incredible mind for writing music.

And it's interesting to hear about the Nashville food scene.

Hanging out backstage before the show.

It really starts to sink in for me how fun Cherokee street is, and we really only saw a small part of it.

To circle back and recap, Amanda has invited me and several other friends from Cherokee street to her place down in Southern Illinois.

Mandolin Grove is Amanda's personal retreat and also a side business that she started during the Pandemic, a vast wooded property along the Shawnee National Forest with several luxury tent campsites that she makes available for rent.

We'd been in this area before and stayed in cabins and gone to the wine trail and loved it.

And we got a lead on a couple of different properties, and then saw this one, and there's just, like, light bulbs kind of went off.

Southern Illinois and Shawnee National Forest is really a good option if you live in St. Louis.

Amazing.

It's a quick getaway, and there's 13 wineries or something like that within a 20 minutes radius of this place.

Orchards and so much good hiking.

This place is peaceful.

But through the company this evening, the same atmosphere of friends and food that I found on Cherokee Street feels alive here in this moment.

Everyone is pitching in to bring this meal together.

This is a Cobden ratitoui.

Though it might seem like work, I'm most relaxed when I do what I love in the kitchen.

Amanda didn't spare any expense for the dinner with a selection of local wines, local lamb, and produce.

So I'm roasting a leg of lamb, and what I did is I just cut it open.

I always do that because it doesn't require very much prep.

And then spread it out and then put a little rosemary in there, little fresh garlic, salt, and pepper.

And then we're going to tie it up so it'll stay together while we're cooking it.

And then we can get a really nice slice once it's cooked.

So I heard you were making a drink using my pickled cucumbers from the restaurant.

Yes.

So we have a cocktail here that's gin and your pickles.

A little bit of, like, a nice orange curacao with a brandy base so it gives it a little and then lime to brighten it up.

And we've got kind of a pickle Martini.

All right, I like it.

Cheers.

It's really good.

I never had pickled juice before in a drink before.

I mean, I'm missing out.

Well, not anymore.

I love this style of cooking.

So unpretentious, you know what I mean?

And it's just good sourced ingredients is all you need.

And put it in.

Oh, my.

Perfect.

Look at that.

Yeah.

Fresh local peaches on the grill are going to make a divine dessert.

We're going to do is grill them, and then we are going to put a little whipped cream on there and some Heath bar crushed Heath bar, and that's it.

I love the peaches here.

I can't get enough of them.

I try to preserve them for the winter.

My dad's favorite dessert was peach melba.

Oh, really?

So I have, like, this love for that particular dish because he always loved it.

And that's truly Southern Illinois right there.

Wow.

One of the things that people really like when they come to Southern Illinois is all the wineries we have here.

I think it's worth the drive from St. Louis down to try all the different varietals we have in Southern Illinois.

Chambourcin is one of the drier reds that I actually prefer, and I think that that's what I'm having.

Smells amazing.

Oh, my gosh.

It smells amazing.

110 degrees.

It's like medium rare.

We are going to get all hyggely together.

I mean, look at all this good food.

All local.

All local.

And look how beautiful it is.

I want it to be more local, inside me.

I want it to be local in my body.

Important to me.

Yes.

Do we do this every week?

Well, we're kind of bringing Cherokee Street to Southern Illinois.

Ron is doing such a fine job, but he needs a bigger pizza oven.

This is so good.

Is it good?

Good.

I'm so glad you liked it because that was an ad hoc thing we just threw in.

But the tomatoes the local, like the heirloom, like cherry tomatoes, when you roast them, they're just candy.

But that bread is great and the bread is really, really good.

That's a business, though.

If you can get a place on Cherokee Street, like selling late night food because there's no late night options on that street.

B-side,burgers is the only place you can get a late meal.

I was so impressed with him, like, doing everything.

Rob, right I know.

I mean, he's like the bartender, the cook, he's the owner.

Yeah.

I mean, he does everything for for that style of burger.

It's a pretty good burger.

Yeah, I know.

And he really put some love and effort into it.

Yeah, well, food is love.

Food is love.

Food is Love Thank you.

And thank you, everyone for coming.

Thank you.

Yeah, thank you, guys.

And thank you for having me.

This has been special.

Personally, I learned a lesson that I should already have known in this point.

You should never judge a place by appearances.

And only visiting the Latin American places on Cherokee Street in the past, I have given myself the impression that that was the depth of it.

Boy, was I wrong.

And I'm on Cherokee Street.

When I walk into this antique store and they have all these cookbooks.

This is Escophier.

Kevin Nashan would love this book.

It comes down to this.

We really do try to take care of the other.

Right.

People know each other.

I would be surprised to walk down the street on any day and not wave at somebody and say hi to somebody because it is really about this community and it takes love and it takes good food and it takes things to entertain you and good music and stuff like that.

Now, I can see that Cherokee Street isn't one particular thing, but the sum of all of it is what has created the culture here.

And at the heart of it are people like Ron and Amanda and places like the Golden Record, Yaqui on Cherokee, B sides and Elaine's just to skim the service.

It speaks to the fact that the framework of a healthy food scene isn't only made up of white tablecloths and dinner reservations, but that sometimes a burger made behind the bar or Frito Pie is exactly what you were looking for.

Food is love.

Here's to the local restaurants, to the chefs, owner, operators, the staff the ones who love being in the weeds night after night when we go to work each morning That's who we have in mind.

From where we source our food to how we deliver it.

Here's to them, the ones who are out there cooking for us every day.

Restaurants are the heart of everything we do.

We are Performance Food Service proudly supporting Food is Love.

Support for Food Is Love comes from Natural Tableware, supplier of sustainable green alternatives to plastic tableware.

Support also comes from Moonrise Hotel, a boutique hotel located on the Delmar Loop in St. Louis.

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