St. Louis, MODive Bars

Where many beer bars go for polish, St. Louis Magazine's bar guide says The Heavy Anchor revels in its dive bar status instead. The taps carry plenty of craft options, but the guide's point is that they sit alongside the more affordable brews, Stag and PBR among them, which it notes even a committed craft drinker reaches for now and then. Order a Stag at the bar on Gravois and let the room be what it is.

St. Louis Magazine's bar guide describes a stalwart of the late-night industry crowd on Chippewa, a room whose regulars come out of the restaurant business, and a perennial favorite for cocktails in a low-key atmosphere. The order the guide singles out is a Bloody Mary, of which the bar runs several variations. Ask the bartender which variation to take, and take it at the bar rather than at a table.

Sauce's review of this Soulard tavern describes a building from 1885 that still carries a Star of David on its facade, left over from years as a synagogue and then a butcher shop. Inside are Formica tables, worn bar stools, a tin ceiling more than fifteen feet up, and walls of handbills and cat tapestries, with ceramic cats behind the bar. St. Louis Magazine calls it a classic dive drawing regulars for cheap beer and a laid back room. Order a draft and find the jukebox.

St. Louis Magazine's bar guide groups O'Connell's with the city's most storied barrooms, notes it was the last bar to leave Gaslight Square, and calls it legendary for beef cooked exactly to order. The magazine's burger guide adds that it moved in 1972 into a former Anheuser-Busch saloon near The Hill, and that it remains one of the few rooms in town where a burger arrives at the temperature you asked for. Order the cheeseburger at the bar.

St. Louis Magazine's bar guide calls this Soulard room a throwback and quotes the shape of the order directly: a shot, a Bud. Live blues plays nightly and the building runs to multiple rooms, which the guide notes is what a saloon is supposed to be. Order the shot and the Bud, then work out which room the band is in. It sits on South Ninth in the thick of the Soulard bar stretch.