Soulard
History, Location and One Big Giant Party
Soulard is located the absolute farthest east that you can go in St. Louis City. It’s just south of downtown and just south of Highway 44 and butts up to Highway 55, so really easy to get to all kinds of places. Besides the really good location of Soulard, one of my favorite things is the walkability of the neighborhood. It’s one of the most walkable neighborhoods in St. Louis City. There are a ton of great bars and restaurants. It’s easily accessible to shopping. In fact, several of the Soulard residents you will see own golf carts, and they use golf carts just to get around. You can get really easily to Busch Stadium. Actually, there’s a lot of stuff downtown that you can access pretty easily. I have a couple of clients that live in Soulard that will often take a Bird scooter either to a Blues game or a Cardinals game.
But you really don’t have to go too far just outside of Soulard itself to find lots of great things to do. There are wonderful bars and restaurants located throughout Soulard, all walkable to all parts of the neighborhood. On the south side of Soulard is the Anheuser-Busch Brewery, where you can take a daily tour. You can go to the restaurant. In the winter, they do their brewery lights. And on the north side of Soulard, you will find the historic Soulard Farmer’s Market for just doing grocery shopping, or it’s a nice way to spend an afternoon browsing around.
One of my other favorite things about Soulard is the architecture. So as you can see, there is a ton of fabulous St. Louis red brick. Most of the buildings are going to be anywhere from two to three stories. They are just gorgeous. I mean, the details in how they built these properties way back when, you just don’t really find much like that anymore. There’s a lot of French influence in the architecture of Soulard, mostly because the settlers in St. Louis at the very beginning were mostly French. So there’s a large French influence in a lot of the architecture in Soulard, which is really nice. A lot of the properties in Soulard you will find will have smaller yards. There are alleys, so there are going to be detached garages in the back. And that’s not to say all of them are going to have smaller yards. There are lots of properties that either may be a double lot or on a corner lot that are going to have a bigger yard with more space available.
What's it like in Soulard?
...and where do we eat?
There is a really nice diverse selection of housing in Soulard. Lots of single-family homes, but also lots of condos and apartments, so there’s something available for everybody. There has been a lot of new construction over the last 10 to 15 years in Soulard and St. Louis City does a great job with their historic districts to make sure that any new construction really adheres to historic standards so that you don’t have anything sticking out like a sore thumb that wasn’t built to look like what the rest of the neighborhood looks like.
Generally, you can get anywhere from a two to four-bedroom home in the Soulard neighborhood for somewhere in the low say 225 up to the 400,000 range. There are lots of options, though, for much bigger grander homes that will go anywhere up to eight or 900,000. Also, lots of options for condos that are going to be in the low to mid-hundreds.
Let’s talk food though. If you’re looking for fantastic food there are TONS of options sprinkled throughout the neighborhood. Some of the best tacos in town can be found at Mission Taco. I would recommend ordering the black bean side dish with the chips and salsa and use the beans as a dip…so good! Another neighborhood favorite is John D. McGurk’s. Not just for St Patty’s Day (which will be packed) but if you have a craving for fish and chips, the best.
Molly’s in Soulard is another local favorite. New Orleans inspired favorites with a little St Louis flair.
Mardi Gras in Soulard
No posted information about the Soulard neighborhood would be complete without a mention of the annual Mardi Gras celebration. It would be an understatement to say that the Mardi Gras party in Soulard every year is a big deal. The parade, the floats, the beads, the Purina Pet Parade. If you can’t make it to NOLA this is the next best thing.