St. Charles, Missouri - November 17th to 18th, 2021
We’ve covered St. Charles in an early blog post of ours (Ohio Trip: Part 2 - Indianapolis, St. Charles, and Hays), but we didn’t really do it justice. It is a frequent stop for us, so we felt it deserved its own post and video.
Wednesday was another long driving day, this time from Cumberland Mountain State Park in Tennessee to St. Charles in Missouri. The rolling hills eventually gave way to the flat farmlands of the midwest. St. Charles is a familiar stop for us. We’ve been using St. Charles as a stop on our annual treks to Ohio for years. We stop either for a meal or an overnight stay. St. Charles is a small town that sits on the Missouri River. It has a cute, historic downtown area and sits right on the Katy Trail. The Katy Trail is a long Rails to Trails bike path that spans most of the state of Missouri. It is part of the Missouri State Park system. Part of the trail is an official segment of the Lewis & Clark National Historic Trail. We’ve biked a couple of small sections of it ourselves.
Even though we got an early start, it was almost dark by the time we arrived in St. Charles, since sunset was around 4:45 pm. We decided to treat ourselves and go out to dinner. Tony’s on Main Street was a restaurant we had never been to before, so we thought we’d give it a shot. We really treated ourselves, as we both had the 6 oz filet. Right Buddy (RB) completed her meal with potato soup and the mixed vegetables with Cajun seasoning. A salad and scalloped potatoes filled out Left Buddy’s (LB’s) order. The food was delicious. The rustic rolls had a thick, chewy but crispy crust. The rest of the food was seasoned, cooked, and prepared quite lovely.
Tony’s on Main Street has become our favorite restaurant in St. Charles, hands down. They have a large menu and there were so many other interesting sounding dishes that we want to try. We considered coming back the following day since we were staying in St. Charles for two nights, but we’ll probably wait until our next visit.
Even though we’ve been to St. Charles several times before, we discovered new things. From Sundermeier RV Park, where we were staying, we walked the Katy Trail about a mile or two to the historic downtown area on Thursday. The trail follows alongside the Missouri River. We took the trail all the way to Boone’s Lick Road, at the far end of Frontier Park before cutting over to Main Street.
The historic downtown looked even cuter than normal, as most of the business had dressed up their store fronts with holiday decorations. Our plan was to find a place to have lunch. In the first block of Main Street, we came across Magpie’s Cafe. The name attracted us, since we both used to work for a company called Magpie Software Services, so we stepped inside. Our waitress was a ball of energy and her excitement was contagious. There were not that many tables inside the house that was converted into their cafe. Most of their seating is outside, on the patio on the side of the house, but it was too chilly, in the 40’s, to sit outside, even with the patio heaters that were burning. Luckily for us, it was early, about 11:30 am, so there were still a couple of tables open inside.
Our luck in finding great places to eat was so good this visit to St. Charles. Magpie’s Cafe was another great place with great food. According to our waitress, they are known for their potato soup. So we both had the Half and Half, half a sandwich and a small bowl of soup. Our warm sandwiches were served on fresh French baguettes. The potato soup did not disappoint and lived up to the hype. We normally don’t eat dessert, but ice cream didn’t sound as appealing on a cold day as the list of desserts staring us in the face on the placard at our table. LB picked out the blackberry cobbler á la mode while RB chose the bing cherry crêpes. Both were delicious. We added Magpie’s Cafe to our list of places to return to on future visits to St. Charles.
Even though it was a cold day, the sun was shining brightly. We strolled slowly down Main Street as RB stopped to take lots of pictures of the picturesque buildings, lit up by the sun. Once we reached the end of Main Street, we headed over to 2nd Street to continue our walk back to the RV Park. This mile long section of 2nd Street is known as Frenchtown. We had never ventured into this area before on our previous visits to St. Charles.
Frenchtown is a national historic district dating back to the 1830’s. The lovely architecture of the buildings includes Greek Revival, Late Victorian, and Colonial styles. An effort to revitalize the area started in 2018. The area is not as built up as Main Street nor as popular, but it still has lovely architecture to explore. The area should only get better with time as the revitalization efforts continue.
If you find yourself traveling along I-70 in Missouri and need a place to stop to stretch your legs, eat, or spend the night, we highly recommend St. Charles. We really enjoy strolling along the river, admiring the old architecture of the historic downtown area, listening to a free concert in Frontier Park, and cycling the Katy Trail. We stop every time we are traveling through the area.
Check out our related video: St. Charles, Missouri
(RB)