County of building: Independent City of St. Louis
Location of building: 2321 Arsenal St., Benton Park Neighborhood, St. Louis
Built: 1886
Has a big and beautiful outdoor section, and is packed for lunch.
This is a cafe that is primary a breakfast and lunch, and afternoon snacks and eats. It is usually not open for the traditional dinner hour.
Google and St. Louis Review rate this cafe as a 4.6 on a 5 point rating system.
I have eaten lunch here a couple of times, and their sandwiches and huge, and delicious. I will gladly recommend this place.
Ownership at time of nomination:
"2321 Arsenal
Stanley E. Wieberg
2321 Arsenal
St. Louis, MO 63118" ~ NRHP Nomination Form
Mansard, circa 1870 - 1900, Coded C
"The popularity and longevity of the mansard roof in Benton Park and similar neighborhoods justify a classification based on that single feature. Mansards appear on almost every block either as an addition to an older house or construction with a new house. Gray
slate is the most common roof material, sometimes enriched with polychrome patterns. The early mansard roofs feature flared profiles and round headed dormers (Photos #8, 23) while later examples are straight-sided, usually with gabled or hipped dormers; occasionally dormers are given a towered effect (Photos #52, 53, 54). Most mansard style buildings share general Italianate characteristics such as bracketed wood or corbelled brick cornices, segmentally and round arched openings, double front doors, raised stone foundations and planar facades. Typical sizes range from two-bay one or two story houses to four-bay, two story multi-family. A few feature storefronts." ~ NRHP Nomination Form
"Located on St. Louis' south side, the Benton Park District is a 19th and early 20th century immigrant neighborhood comprising approximately 1668 contributing buildings and 186 non-contributing ones. The majority of structures are residential; in addition,
there are three public schools, four churches and two parochial schools, two brewery complexes and three smaller industrial buildings. The contributing buildings were constructed
between circa 1848 and 1935; except for a small number of early frame one story houses, the buildings are brick, the traditional St. Louis building material. Residential examples predominately are multi-family, constructed as two- to six-bay, one and two
story detached houses and as two- and three-bay, two story attached rows. Two primary commercial strips on Cherokee Street and Jefferson Avenue have concentrations of buildings combining first story storefronts and second story flats; numerous other mixed-use buildings appear on corners throughout the District. While ornamental detailing and roof forms provide stylistic variations, District buildings are unified by their overall planar
facades, similar cornice lines, materials, color and scale. The District's street plan follows grids laid out at the time the subdivisions were originally platted. Three public parks, Cherokee Park, Carnegie Place and Benton Park (Photo #1) were set aside as open spaces in the 19th century.
"Compared with similar inner city neighborhoods, the Benton Park District has survived with unusually high structural density and little loss of integrity. The vast majority of streetscapes are intact with little demolition, few intrusions and minor alterations to buildings. Where alterations have occurred, they most frequently are replacements to deteriorated elements on rear elevations (Photo #31), cornices (Photos #54, 59, 83), porch
supports (Photos #17, 21), and mansard roofs (Photos ,142, 43). Some storefronts are boarded but the cast iron framing is undisturbed (Photos #63, 54, 88). The houses have been well-maintained and have a high rate of owner-occupancy.
"All non-contributing buildings are designated with an asterisk on the Architectural Survey Map; they include buildings which are less than fifty years old such as numerous one story brick in-fill houses (Photo #2) as well as various other commercial and industrial buildings (Photos #80, right; 103, right. Examples of non-contributing historic buildings which have lost integrity through radical facade alteration are illustrated in Photos ,13, 4, 5.
"All contributing buildings are coded by letter on the Architectural Survey Map under eight classifications (often overlapping) based on style and use. Dates assigned to
various style groups below often overlap as styles changed at different rates. ~ NRHP Nomination Form
Map - Northern Half Map - Southern Half