It’s rare that I enjoy a conversation more than coffee, but I got both at an unexpectedly delightful third-wave coffee shop on a cold and gray winter afternoon in St. Louis, Missouri.
Best Coffee In St. Louis, Missouri
It was a Saturday afternoon and we had just finished up touring The Gateway Arch and were ready to drive to Chicago.
My wife Heidi had a Starbucks at the Hyatt Regency St. Louis, but I sought to find a local coffee shop to fuel me for the final leg of our road trip.
I was surprised that nearly all the downtown St. Louis coffee shops were closed…it seems that the city of St. Louis is a Monday – Friday city when it comes to coffee.
Thankfully I found one that was open and we’d just make it if we let right away.
Let me add that the entire city was like a ghost town on Saturday afternoon…not many cars at all.
We finally pulled up and found the coffee shop, which is located inside Art Saint Louis.
Catalyst Coffee Bar
801 Locust Street
St. Louis, MO 63103
8:00 am – 4:00 pm (Monday – Friday)
9:00 am – 3:00 pm (Saturday)
Closed Sunday
Let’s talk about Todd, who is pictured below.
What a lovely man…so friendly and kind…a great barista too. We had a wonderful conversation while he made my (perfect) cortado. We talked about St. Louis highlights, his trips to California, life in LA, and coffee.
Todd single-handedly left me with a very positive impression of St. Louis!
I suspect there are many other great places and while I don’t have any plans to be back in St. Louis in the foreseeable future, I’m open to your suggestions. It appears that in the city, though, you better seek out coffee on weekdays…or in the case of Catalyst, Saturday too.
As you saw, downtown St. Louis isn’t really a thing anymore. Not even during the week. The main business district, or perhaps I should say financial district, is actually in Clayton. Central West End, and other areas around Forest Park would have been much livelier on Saturday. But with all that being said, I’ll make sure to check this place out next time I’m downtown.
Downtown is definitely not the place to be on Saturday. For coffee, I get my beans for coffee at home from Kaldi. Some great coffee shops: Coffeestamp, Northwest, Mud House, Protagonist, Blueprint, Sump. They all roast their own beans. Pro baristas
I wish you had stayed longer. There is ana amazing.coffee scene. The metro area is 3.million people. St Louis is the original coffee town in America due to the French. In 1850.there were 50.coffee.ahops.downtown. ..you should buy a book St Louis coffee, a stimulating history from Arcadiapublishing.com which is a history of st Louis.coffee.. late 1800s St Louis was the largest.coffee.importer.citynin the USA. .. there are roasters in coffee shops ..everywhere today. So many great coffee roaster spots in St Louis. Sump, Kaldi, Park Ave, Shaw, Goshen, …hundreds…local magazine top 50 coffee shops https://www.stlmag.com/dining/top-coffee-shops-in-st-louis/. Side note Clipper coffee s the only coffee roaster I know of that has access to the top 1 percent of coffee beans due to his families.70 yr relationships.with coffee growers
Great Story.Do you offer any samples at all. Great job on the subject.
Sadly St. Louis has squandered their amazing revitalization of downtown with poor public leadership and lack of proper police work. Covid didn’t help as less and less people commuted downtown to work. Glad you found coffee downtown on a Saturday and posted a good review of this shop.
I used to work in the city and frequented a Cuban restaurant that since moved west. Commuting to a desolate hellscape is one of the reasons I left that job.