Once upon a time, a publication called The Bugle regaled south St. Louis, particularly the Carondelet neighborhood and adjoining areas, with news generously laced with silliness. The advertisers seemed pretty happy with its readership and dotted the pages with messages about their dry-cleaning abilities, banana and Dreft sales and real estate possibilities. Readers might note several taverns that advertised something called Merchant Lunch.
This, of course, was before the proliferation of the drive-through and fast food, and folks who sold washing machines and venetian blinds or answered telephones and used typewriters might need an option besides the brown bag. Thus, the merchant lunch, usually a smallish steam table full of home-style food – this, sometimes, in addition to the burgers and whatnot the saloons might sell later in the day. So it was Swiss steak, liver and onions, chicken and dumplings, that sort of thing. This may have been my introduction to mostaccioli, in fact. Oh, and green beans; I believe there was some sort of city statute that said green beans had to be sold at any steam table in St. Louis.
All this to explain that I had a real throwback moment at lunch at the Hilltop Inn. Just south of the intersection of Morgan Ford and Loughborough Roads, it's an anonymous looking little spot. Parking is in the back, if you're lucky enough to find a spot, and so is the entrance. At night, the focus is on conversation (loud conversation, from reports) and drinking; the Hilltop fits the modern definition of dive bar. (Note: Once upon a time, a dive bar was the place you didn't want your mother's best friend to see you leaving, dirty and sinful and probably scandalous.)
But at lunch, there's lunch. There's always soup, of course, and hamburgers and ham sandwiches, but beyond that, it depends on the day of the week. On this Wednesday, there were breaded pork chops, roast beef and sausage with peppers and onions. The roast top round of beef was cooked through, the kind of stuff that makes me think of open-face beef sandwiches, and alongside were steamed red potatoes, among other things. The BFF went for sausage with onions and peppers, showing a chicken sausage with what we're pretty sure was cheese among the ingredients, which prevented dryness. The seasoning was Italian, including fennel and pepper. Her side dish was some creamed spinach, not what we might have seen on our particular mom's supper tables, but still, a decent, serviceable dish.
And then there was the hamburger. This is, speaking of her, a momburger, very much the home-style fat-ish burger cooked through, but still very juicy, although we acknowledge the cheese and grilled onions added mightily to the pleasure and moisture. They're fairly small in diameter, so an order of two might be called for, but the flavor is marvelous, the kind of thing that causes little grunts of pleasure. A salad, mentioned among the possible sides for the sausage dish, turned out to be a bowl of iceberg lettuce , dressed very much in the Pasta House style, a vinaigrette with garlic and oregano. But the dressing didn't puddle in the bottom, and there wasn't a smidge of browned edges on the lettuce, another mom-ish point.
The single waitress was flying about, so we didn't get a chance to ask who supplied the sausage, but she was pleasant and un-rushed when she got a chance to take our order. Plenty of obvious regulars, tables of working guys and older couples meeting for lunch, and a decor that makes multiple color televisions seem a little startling. Surely the eye expects a slightly fuzzy black-and-white telecast of the Friday night fights and a Stag commercial, or maybe a young Joe Garagiola doing play-by-play for Wrestling at the Chase.
Cash only; there's an ATM. And, yes, no smoking, the REAL proof of what decade we're actually in. And at night, they only serve burgers.
Hillton Inn
6902 Morgan Ford Rd.
314-481-9191
Lunch Mon.-Fri., burgers at night., Mon.-Sat.
Credit cards: No
Wheelchair access: Poor
Smoking: No
Entrees: $4-$7