Find a home away from home at one of The Montage’s cafe picks
By: Kelly Glueck
-Online Editor-
1. Cafe Nura: The home away from home
Located off E. Lockwood in Webster Groves, Cafe Nura’s comfortable environment is filled with couches and armchairs to make its customers feel at ease. This quant home away from home is complete with reasonably priced drinks, wraps, and hookahs. The walls are decked with local artists’ works on the bold red and yellow walls. If you need some clarification on that world history or world religion topic, you may be lucky enough to snag one of the STLCC-Meramec professors that linger around these parts. In addition to the relaxing hookahs offered after 5 p.m., students also take knitting breaks every second and last Saturday of the month for the cafe’s Public Displays of Knitting. The friendly sisters that run Cafe Nura and the regulars that spend almost as much time there will be happy to recommend the chai latte. The more familiar a face becomes, the more often they will be challenged to a game of Scrabble. It’s said that Scrabble builds one’s vocabulary, another reason to work on a term paper there.
2. Lone Wolf Coffee Co.: For the outdoors enthusiast
Lone Wolf Coffee Co. in Ballwin offers a wide selection of healthy and nutritious food, fresh roasted coffees, and weekly entertainment. Walking into the Lone Wolf, let the unfinished wood, hanging canoes and assorted fishing photos transcend the stress of the hustle-and-bustle of life into a tranquil escape into a cabin in the woods. This quiet cabin feel is great for students that need a place to get away to finish studying for that geology exam next week. The wall decor even offers detailed topographical maps complete with every floatable river and hiking trail in Ontario. The Lone Wolf also offers a place for outdoorsy types to meet and convene for everything from local bike races to community trips to the Grand Canyon. There is also blues music played ever Wednesday and local blues, jazz and rock music every weekend.
3. Foundation Grounds: For the environmentalist
Foundation Grounds is an eco-friendly cafe located in the heart of the Maplewood neighborhood. A mere 15-minute drive from campus, this unique cafe is owned by a local couple from the west coast. Everything in the cafe is green from the organic coffee to the bio-degradable cup it’s held in –even the cleaning products are green. As if that is not green enough, the owner, Pedro, grows his own fresh basil in his own backyard for the pesto on his Lacy sandwich. The staff there is friendly and the regulars keep to themselves. The decorative plants and soothing indie music makes for a pleasant atmosphere. So grab a vegan cookie and start brainstorming for that biology project.
4. Russell’s Cafe and Bakery: For the sweet ladies and lads
Russell’s is a premium coffee, sandwiches and bakery located in Valley Park just off Route 141. This cute bakery, ran by the young Russell Bing, a Rockwood Summit graduate, is often packed with regulars and friendly staff busy exchanging stories and spoonfuls of their made-from-scratch Chicken Pot Pie Soup which is to be featured in this year’s Soup’s On competition in Kirkwood later this month. While this location may not be the best place to cram for a calculus test at noon, it offers more comfort food anyone could fathom for the study munchies.
It also makes for a great stop for Valentine’s Day. The bakery offers adorable iced cupcakes, chocolate sprinkled strawberries, and a variety of other sweet items to make any one’s mouth water. However, do not plan on getting Blackboard homework done here; this is the only location on the list with no Wi-Fi.
