Gus' Pretzels

This here blog is a one man operation. It's just me. I've got no editor, research department or fact checkers. I'd imagine this is coming as no surprise to you, esteemed reader, but since there is no one here to draw lines through my sentences I'm saying it anyway. Sometimes while working on a post I do some actual research, a lot of the time I don't. But I promise that nothing I say is an outright fabrication. Even this...

My buddy Tony's dad beat up Gus from Gus' Pretzels.

Gus Jr. to be precise. Apparently he said something inappropriate to, or about, Tony's mom. I wasn't there so I don't know the details, but I'd like to think that once Gus Jr's teeth were sore and nose bloody, it was all water under the bridge for Tony's folks. They're the kind of people for whom past fisticuffs with the proprietor of a pretzel shop is hardly a reason to stop enjoying his cheap and salty wares. Why let one hiccup ruin a good thing? Gus makes a stellar pretzel.

I've previously mentioned my Mom's struggle to feed my siblings and I only scratch-made food when we were young. She was successful for many years. But time has a way of wearing down all things, even good intentions. Children go to school, and while they're there parents of their classmates bring in cupcakes on birthdays. Hawaiian Punch is served in mouth wash cups with a graham cracker for snack. On the last day of October it is made sufficiently clear that raisins are not the same thing as candy.

My first encounter with Gus' Pretzels was in the backseat of my Mom's station wagon. She was driving my sister, brother and I home from a dentist appointment early in my grade school years. Half a block south of the intersection of Jamieson and Fyler she pulled the car up to the center median and gave a scruffy looking man a few dollars for a bag of pretzels shaped like cartoon cigars. She gave one to each of us, a spontaneous reward for our courageous behaviour at the dentist. That pretzel, if slightly stale, was delicious even to a mouth tasting faintly of blood and fluoride.

That first roadside pretzel was a turning point, a pragmatic change of strategy. Mom's first admission that she wouldn't be able to keep the world at bay forever. The new plan was to grant us limited access to some acceptable foodstuffs from the world outside her kitchen, if only to keep Mountain Dew and nacho cheez at arms length for a few more years. By the time I was in middle school my dear mother started buying frozen Gus' Pretzels at the grocery store for after school snacks.

Truthfully, when it comes to pretzels, I'm not to picky. If its a twist or stick of salted bread I'll eat it with a smile on my face. Add a puddle of mustard and mug of cold beer and you're nearing perfection. But Gus' hold a special place in my heart. What's not to like about stand alone pretzel shop? Especially one that been around since 1920. The economy has taken its share of spills since 1920. It makes you wonder how Gus' has survived, especially considering that its 2011 and a pretzel stick still only cost 55 cents.

Location. Location. Location. 

Taqueria La Pasadita

When I really knew-- when I was sure of it-- was when she asked me if I wanted onions and cilantro. It was the way she asked. She was singing.

Onions and cilantro?

The same way David Spade sang, you want mint for pillow? through the motel room door in Tommy Boy.

This is happening a couple of years ago inside an old Taco Bell. Except It's not a Taco Bell anymore. It's a new mom and pop taqueria inside the old Taco Bell in Overland. Same fake stucco walls. Same cyan, magenta and lavender stripes. Same bolted down prison booths and tables. The bathrooms are still outside and around the back.

The service counter is still there, but the perfectly adorable Mexican grandmother behind it lilts for you to sit anywhere. She brings you a 32 ounce hard plastic soda cup of ice water, the menu, warm chips and smokey red salsa. Then you order and she sings your taco topping options.

Her serenade erases all doubt.  You know for sure, your new favorite restaurant lives inside the shell of your ex-favorite restaurant.

Imagine a perfect world.

There is no war. No one is suffering. And instead of Taco Bell there is Taqueria La Pasadita.

You can pull off the interstate at just about any exit and get the best chorizo taco you've ever had for $1.89. The chorizo is vibrantly red, like the grilled pork at Pho Grand, and slightly crispy, like the edges of a burger at Carl's Drive In.  Squeeze on a lime, and a squirt of bright, green salsa and prepare for lift off. Or, for $5.99 on your meal card, the Taqueria La Pasadita Express in your college lunch room sells an al pastor torta that will force you to rewrite your Favorite Sandwich List. Life is amazing.

We may not live in a perfect world, but at least we live in St. Louis.

Riverside Salvage

I like history but I've never wanted to be an archeologist. I prefer artifacts that you don't have to extricate from the soil with a horse hair brush. The kind that you find in other people's attics and curbside piles of furniture and picture frames. The stuff they're about to give to goodwill or set next to the dumpster. Precious relics in disguise. The kind that end up in soggy cardboard boxes and trash trucks. They're so much more affordable.

For low cost acquisition of genuine artifacts from 21st century American life, I recommend Riverside Salvage on Hall Street.

If you've never been to a self service junkyard, you're overdue. Whether or not you are in the market for used auto parts is inconsequential. It's about exploring.

The junkyard is the only place I know where you can pay a dollar, get your hand stamped, and rifle through the glove boxes of the dead.

Cars come to the junkyard in one of two ways.

The first way: A car breaks down. When the owner looks into having it fixed the cost of the repair is more than they are willing to spend. So they take their sunglasses out of the center console, get the road atlas out of the seat back pocket and sell it to the junkyard.  The owner gets two hundred bucks from the junkyard and the junkyard gets a 1991 Acura Legend with a bad transmission. Great news for you if you happen to own a 1991-1995 Acura Legend and came to the junkyard looking for a passenger side window.

The second way: A drunk wraps his car around a traffic light. He goes to the hospital, the morgue or jail. His car goes to the junkyard, beer cans still littering the floor.

Experiencing the junkyard for the first time is revealing. It's equal parts playground, workshop, museum and cemetery. Well worth the dollar you placed in the filthy hand of the man sitting in the shack by the entrance. He's been all through every one of these cars, but feel free to look through his leftovers. The really good stuff is already at his place.

Your dollar buys access to a world of broken automobiles and lax supervision. Drinking beer is decidedly not frowned upon. You're going to get dirty. I'd advise against white sneakers. 

Hand stamped, walking away from the gate you wade into a moderately sized lake of cars. The ground underfoot is slimy with fluids and spiked with small shards of automobile. Your head is just above the roof line. All kinds of cars stacked in rows, hoods mostly up, interiors wet from rain. Cigarettes still in the ashtray, religious pamphlets in the trunk, liquor bottles, a plastic baggie of captain crunch. Distributor caps, side view mirrors, trans-axles. All gathered for inspection.

Take the time to look inside the cars. Notice the steering wheel cover and the Bill Withers tape. This is somebody's car.  Its full of their stuff. Their fast food trash, their gym bag, their yellow pages. Sometimes the airbags are deployed. Other times there's been a fire. These cars lived in the real world, get inside one and you can almost go where it's been. In an hour in the junkyard you can go a lot of places. 

Nobody will mind if you take a souvenir. I've got a box of them.

My Friend's Cheap Car

I don't know how much my friend, The Driver, paid for the Party Van. No amount would be too much. *


How Much Does Perfect Cost?

I'm starting to think the two most powerful words in the English language are white van.

The Human Crumple Zone is one of the areas inside the Party Van. Take off your hat and come in. It is in front of the rear bench seat, just behind the cockpit, from the sliding door to the wall. If you want, you can use the un-lined Spanish Conquistador's helmet. No one will think less of you. There might be fireworks. There will be shouting.

The Human Crumple Zone is the perfect classroom, laboratory, dance floor, arena and abattoir. Feel free to leave something behind.

Deep In the Crumple Zone

In the party van you can do anything, but it must be done with vitality.

The first step is letting go. The Driver has done this many times before. He does it well. I would say he is in control, but he knows there is no such thing.


The Driver**


What should you know going in?

It's going to be fun.
Relax.
Trust Me.

OK?

"Driver, begin!"

The music is making you punch the ceiling with ecstatic metronomic gusto. The dance floor is moving at 70 miles an hour, maybe sideways. You aren't alone. Gravity is there. And The Driver. And whoever you brought. It's raining. The rain is punching the ceiling from above.

Don't bother inviting the rain to your party. It's already there.

The ceiling is made of metal. But It feels good to punch because of the head liner. Ice in a Styrofoam cup.

This is the beginning. Explore.

GO TO THE SOURCE!!

* This picture, and the detail shot, are not of The Driver's actual Party Van. This is someone else's Party Van that I found. An "older" slightly Hoosier Party Van.

** This is actually the driver.***

*** REALLY.

Porter's Fried Chicken

If you could have any super power what would you choose?

Invisibility is perfect for watching girls get undressed. But when you choose invisibility you've declared yourself a creep. Flying would be amazing. But it draws a lot of attention, and flying in St. Louis in the winter requires so many layers that sometimes it's just simpler to drive. Invincibility is boring. Time travel is an especially wriggly can of worms. It makes never being born dangerously easy.

I've known my ideal super power for a long time. It came to me one day in High School.

My super power: Every meal I ever ate would be the most delicious thing I've ever eaten, just slightly more delicious than the last thing I ate.

Simple and practical. I love to eat.

The fried chicken at Porter's is not the best thing I've ever eaten. It's just the best fried chicken. Infallible. Porter's made me understand why there are places like KFC and Lee's Famous Recipe.*


The Best Fried Chicken

On paper Lee's Famous Recipe should be my favorite restaurant. But in the real world, tip-toeing the Shrewsbury-Maplewood border, there is a fried chicken joint called Porter's. It's in the perfect nobody of a strip mall, right between the laundromat and the pool hall. The name of the strip mall is painted on a rock out front.


Porter's Fried Chicken


Laundromat


Pool Hall

I get the two piece or three piece special depending on hunger. Special means all breasts. Slightly more expensive.

The first time you come in the girl at the counter will explain that all the meals and snacks come with mashed potatoes, slaw and a biscuit. But if you want, for an extra 40 cents, you can get fries. The second time you come she'll ask, "Mash and slaw?" The third time she won't need to ask. The fourth time explain it to someone else.


Catfish Dinner with Tartar Sauce

What makes the perfect chicken place? Porter's does it with a skyline of of white cardboard boxes waiting to be greased-thru by hot salty chicken. And a Lions Club of Webster used eyeglass collection box. And a bowling league trophy. And the occasional fried feather. And greasy floors and Thrifty Nickle classifieds. Phone in orders encouraged.



My buddy John's family has Porter's every time one of his 6 siblings has a birthday. Maybe the parents birthdays too. Fourth of July. Sunday nights. Family reunions.

John was the one that brought me to Porter's. And he was with me the day a representative of the St. Louis Tall Club tried to recruit us. He was also there when three of use fought vicious hangovers to get our Motorcycle Permits at the DMV branch across the street. After a restorative fried chicken lunch, resplendent with perfectly mixed Cherry Pepsi in a 24oz Styrofoam cup, we got our permits. We saw Shady Jack in line at the DMV, he got his motorcycle permit at 15 and a half. I got mine at 28.

Lets get down to brass tacks.

The reason Porter's is so amazing is that it made me realize that I don't need a super power to love fried chicken. I just needed proof of its existence before I could accept that there is such a thing as good fried chicken. Now, I can even kind of enjoy bad fried chicken. It's a powerful feeling.




* As a matter of fact, the next business down Big Bend past Porter's and the pool hall is a KFC. There is only Shrewsbury ave, a creek/drainage ditch and a thin parking lot in between. Mr. and Mrs. Porter are not sweating it.

My Friend's Cheap Car

St. Louis is a lot of things. It's a beer town and a baseball town. The museums are free. We get all four seasons. Gas stations sell beer. It's got history. It's affordable. It's got potential galore.

There are beautiful buildings like The Cathedral Basilica and The Central Branch of the Public Library. Our Symphony kicks ass. We have our own kind of pizza, and our own cut of ribs. We invented an entirely new kind of cheese. Not to mention toasted ravioli.

But, there are a lot of things that St. Louis is not. St. Louis is not Progressive. It is Authentic, and multi-faceted, and Real. But not progressive. In progressive cities round the world intelligent, well-read, locavores, ride their bicycles to work. And they stop on the way for an Organic Fair Trade Cafe Latte at their friendly, neighborhood, coffee roaster and brunch spot/general store. Then they finish their brisk and invigorating ride to work. They lock up their bike and swipe in to their totally modern, LEED Platinum Certified, Architecturally significant building. Before hopping into the office's unisex shower room with adjoining steam and sauna, and doing some brief and totally spontaneous bikram yoga with young Ms. Rose Sherpa, the new Nepalese intern from the famous Sherpa family of mountain guides. The very same Sherpa family that is renowned for being on every single successful ascent of Mt. Everest of all time! And then these progressive people do some meaningful, engrossing and totally admirable work before calling it a day and going home to spend time with their beautiful and unconditionally loving families.

St. Louisans aren't progressive in the same way as those people. In St. Louis, we drive to work. And a lot of us do it in cheap used cars.

My Friend's Cheap Car will be a recurring series on One Guy's Guide to St. Louis, in which I will examine My friends' Cheap Cars.

Shall we begin?

Cole's 1990 2wd Toyota Pick Up
Travis

This is Cole's truck, Travis. In the interest of full disclosure let me explain right off the bat, that in addition to being one of my very best friends, Cole is also my younger brother, and one of the coolest people I know. So it's possible that my love for my brother is influencing the way I feel about his truck. You'll have to be the judge of that.

I love Cole's truck.

I've always had a close relationship with Cole's vehicles. My first car was his first car too. And my second car was really his car that he let me use. Even though it was my mom's hand me down station wagon, and it never really belonged to me, Cole and I loved his wagon so completely that we named it the Death Wagon. And we had our talented buddy One Shot a hood mural.

Does the idea of a 1996 purplish gray Ford Taurus station wagon with skull on the hood do anything for you? Well what if I told you the skull was wearing an eye patch, and Pirate's hat? and that there were crossed swords beneath him. And a cut noose around where his neck would have been. And that on top of all that was a top rocker that read DEATH. And a bottom rocker that read WAGON.


The Death Wagon Hood

As we all know nothin lasts for ever, even Ford Taurus station wagons. And after a few years Cole bought a Crown Vic and we started scouring the bowels of St. Louis for under utilized non-purpose built skid pads, which we sessioned heavily upon the arrival of the very first snow flake. The crown vic is gone now too, but we still remember its 4.6l engine and rear wheel drive whenever a fellow motorist skirts the tires.



The story of Travis the truck begins on a very very hot summer day in St. Louis. Cole has been looking for a used car for several weeks.

"There's a Brat for $800 in Belleville," he says stomping down the back steps in partially unlaced high tops.

"Oh Yeah?" I say looking up from scanning the grass for any nuts, bolts, springs, washers, raspberries, buds, or quarters that might have rolled off the picnic table. "Does it have the jump seats?" I ask.

The jump seats in a Subaru Brat were a pair of color matched plastic racing seats that got bolted down facing backwards in the bed of the little Japanese car truck. Cole and I have discussed the brat's rear facing jump seats on many occasions. often while playing the 'what cars would you buy with unlimited money' game. During which Cole would usually call me lame for maintaining that I would only buy one car. A 1984 Toyota Starlet rear wheel drive hatchback with a 5-speed. I would shoehorn in a bigger more powerful, corolla motor and then have it painted in some deep Easter egg faux-livery and thrash the living shit out of it around town.

Cole on the other hand could always come up with at least 25 different cars he wanted. And would tell me why he wanted them, and what they represented to him personally and to the greater car world without hesitating a second.

"Not Sure," Cole answers, "The ad is pretty vague. It was an old man's car but he's dead, or can't drive or something. I talked to his daughter who said we could come out now... So are you coming?"
"Can we stop at a gas station?"
"Sure."

So I got up from the picnic table in Cole's backyard and we drove to Belleville on a hot ass summer day in the Crown Vic. The one with dark blue vinyl seats and no air conditioning.

As you might have guessed, since this post is about a Toyota pick-up, we didn't buy the Brat. It didn't have the jump seats, or most of the bed, or some of the frame, or most of several rear suspension pieces.

So we turned around in Belleville and drove back home. With the sun in our eyes.

Back at Cole's, drinking a glass of water, I decided that it couldn't be that hard to find a decent car or truck, or car truck. One thing to lead to another, craigslist to cell phone to google maps, and we were on our way to St. Peters.

With us on the drive to St. Peters we had the $660 we had planed on giving for the Brat. Visions of cherries danced in our minds.



The truck was parked on the street in a subdivision where every road ends in a Cul-de-Sac. It was red. With the perfectly uniform loss of clear coat that old Toyotas are known for. An overweight man in his 60s answered the door to his home, inside the thermostat was set in the 60s.

We're here about the truck. We talked to your wife.

He introduces himself.

I'll spare you the description of the truck.

After we test drive and look the truck over, Cole tells me he wants to buy it. We devise a plan. The fat man who has been outside for 5 minutes is dripping sweat. The Craigslist ad was asking $1000 for the truck.



"Well... Between us we have 660 bucks," we say.
"Well I'd have to get at least 800..."

Is all he can say before I blurt out,
"You got a deal!" and vigorously shake his soggy hand.

Then we adjourned to the air conditioned kitchen to attend to the paperwork. The story of the truck unfolds as signatures are laid to paper. The truck belonged to their daughter, but she's pregnant now, under less than ideal circumstances, maybe in the military, and she needs a bigger car.

Just as we seemingly wrap everything up and the Title nears Cole's hand, the wife remembers that they need to get the license plates off the truck.

The license plates are fastened to the bumpers by whatever rusty and half stripped hardware was within arms length of the vice grips that proud day in 1990 when the plates for the new truck showed up in the mail. The old man hands Cole a flat-head screwdriver. Cole looks at him quizzically then kneels down on the scorching hot pavement.

A few minutes pass. "Do you have any other tools?"

A trip to the garage and another few minutes. The old man is leaning over Cole offering thin advice and a light showering of sweat.

After a few more minutes of laying full long on his side on the pavement, with the little pebbles pressed and clinging to the perspiration on his left forearm, and some grunting, the second plate comes off.

Cole hands the man his tools and reaches for the title.

The fat man says one last thing. "And by the way... the truck's name is Travis."

Del Taco

My parents claim that they were hippies. The only real evidence I have ever seen to support this claim is a couple of old photographs, my mom's singular devotion to breast feeding and the fact that they made my brother, my sister and I eat really healthy when we were kids.


Hippies?

When you are a kid and your parents are constantly feeding you delicious, healthful, scratch made meals, it makes you want to eat junk food more than anything in the world. So when you finally get the chance to eat some shitty food, you eat it like you're trying to win a fraternity weight displacement challenge.* I remember spending the night at a friend's house on a Friday night and his parents ordering us Dominos pizza to eat while we watched TGIF. I ate myself retarded on pepperoni pizza and washed it down with 7 or 8 cokes. It was a formative moment.

Then I got my drivers license and fell in love. My first love cost 79 cents. She was an 8 inch tortilla filled with thin bean-less chili and shredded cheese, then steamed for 10 seconds to melt the cheese. Simple and delicious. From the Chilito* I ventured out finding new loves. The Mexi-Melt, the Double Decker Taco, The Grilled Stuffed Burrito. For a time in my life I counted money in increments of Taco Bell meals.

In high school, my friend Karl rolled up the car window on my fishing rod and broke the tip off, I made him pay me back in lunches at Taco Bell. For a couple of weeks during the summer of 1997 I could literally walk into the Taco Bell on Skinker north of Delmar and order the usual.

It was heaven while it lasted. Then some time in the late 90's Taco Bell did a complete overhaul of their ingredients. The new recipes claimed to feature, heartier beans, spicier beef and something else. For me what the actually featured was less goodness. And just like that my first love had faded. I still came back for the occasional familiar tryst but I always ended up leaving full of regret, guilt, and shitty fast food Mexican.

I knew that St. Louis supported another fast food Mexican joint. My first experience with Naugles was going through the drive-thru in a friend's Mom's car after she picked us up from seeing Wayne's World at The Esquire. We were high on laughter and needed sustenance to carry on. I told the speaker I would like one bean burrito and it barked back "Red or Green?" I found myself wishing we were at taco bell.

Then one day Naugles was gone and in its place was Del Taco. For a long time my policy on Del Taco was basically isolationist, I let Del Taco do its thing, and it let me do mine. Live and let live you know.

Then my friends started drinking. And getting hungry at 2:00am. And just like that Del Taco forced itself into my world in the form of 25 cent tacos.

The taco at Del Taco is a marvel of minimalist fast food. A regular sized hard taco shell half filled with dryish crumbly ground beef, a few shreds of bagged iceberg lettuce and some very finely shredded yellow cheese. It is nothing to look at, in fact the taco shell is almost universally broken by the time you unwrap it. But do not be deterred by its modest appearance, and for Christ's sake do not attempt to eat it dry. The real magic at Del Taco, the heart of the operation, is Del Scorcho sauce. For my money it is the best sauce packet in the world, and it don't cost nuthin. Squeeze two or three, or 8, onto whatever you order and wait for you taste buds to thank you for your excellent judgement.


The Best Sauce Packet in The World


Taco with Del Scorcho

From that first lowly taco, it was just a hop skip and a jump to the cheddar quesadilla, macho taco, and crispy fish taco. I'm hooked. If you need to find me on Sunday around noon, I suggest you check the front booth at the Del Taco on McCausland, I'll be the one with the neck-high pile of empty Del Scorcho packets.


My Local Del Taco


Cheddar Quesadilla with Del Scorcho

Even if I don't happen to be there when you go, there is always something interesting going on at Del Taco. There is a good chance that the person taking your order will be singing instead of talking. The dining room will most likely smell a little farty, but try and embrace the stinkiness and it will only enhance your experience. Imagine you are eating in a little roadside taqueria in Mexico, except the roadside taqueria is shaped like a fucking space ship! (Grand location only). And the chair backs are in the shape of cacti.


The Mother Ship


Cactus Chair

I'll conclude with a true story. A friend of mine was drunk in the drive-thru line of the McCausland location late one weekend night. In a moderately surprising turn of events he ended up getting in a fist fight with a drunk guy in the car in front of him in line. My buddy and this other guy pounded on each other for a minute or so in full view of the staff, then the drive-thru line moved forward and they got back in their cars and picked up their orders. Just another night in the Del Taco drive-thru.



*My Uncle Mike once competed in a fraternity weight displacement challenge and gained 11 pounds in one day. It was good enough for 2nd place.

*The Chilito is now called the Chili Cheese Burrito, and is only available at Taco Bells in some regions. Good luck ordering one outside the Midwest. Yet another reason that people who move away from St. Louis are saps.