A Location Staycation in St. Louis
Have you ever vacationed in your own city? We recently took a weekend to explore St. Louis without the usual distractions at home - and it was amazing! Unplugging and filling your cup doesn’t have to be complicated, and it doesn’t even have to be far away.
A big thanks to the Drury Inn for having us to partner on bringing this post to life - and for being such a relaxing and dog-friendly environment to kick back and enjoy our stay!
For our stay, we packed our bags and headed to the Drury Inn in Brentwood where we enjoyed:
-A clean, dog-friendly room with a super comfortable bed
-Their daily 5:30pm-7pm complimentary kickback with snacks and cocktails
-Hot breakfast in the morning
-Quick and easy access to so many local restaurants, activities and shops that we love!
Here’s what we enjoyed:
After check-in on Friday night, a delicious treat to start our weekend - Clementine’s Naughty and Nice Creamery. This is easily one of our all-time favorite spots in town! I highly recommend their Italian Butter Cookie flavor, or the Midnight Pleasures. Don’t skip the hot fudge topping! We picked up our favorite flavors to go and enjoyed a movie to start our weekend wind-down. AH, it felt so good to just relax without the distractions of cleaning up or doing chores at home.
On Saturday, we headed to Zootoberfest at the St. Louis Zoo after enjoying a hot breakfast at the hotel. The Zoo is FREE to enjoy (the best part!) and we love making it there for this special event each year. Since the summers here are hot, we much prefer a fall visit to the zoo. During Zootoberfest, the zoo features special beer vendors and delicious German-inspired food. The G&W Bratwursts are to die for!
If at any point during your weekend you are looking for excellent local coffee near the hotel, stop at Bonaventure’s drive through. This cute little double sided coffee hut serves up great brews with the friendliest smiles.
Later in the day, we were so excited to head to Beyond Van Gogh, an immersive experience. Happening just a skip away from the Drury Brentwood at the Galleria Mall parking lot until November 21st, this artful and unique exhibit is such a fun date idea. We especially loved this because we visited the Van Gogh museum during our trip to Amsterdam in 2018, and it’s a spot we’ll always want to go back to. Van Gogh’s story is crazy! If you liked the exhibit, consider reading this book for more of his backstory.
After some more relaxing, we enjoyed the kickback happy hour at the Drury. Don’t miss it if you stay there! In addition to snacks, guests receive THREE free cocktails during the kickback.
Time for dinner! I love how Katie’s Pizza and Pasta has the ability to reserve an outdoor table, so we headed there later in the evening for cocktails and snacks. My favorite cocktail there is the Merry Christmas drink - so delicious! Other favorite items are the roasted artichokes with ricotta, the burrata appetizers as well as their pepperoni pizza.
Easy like Sunday morning, we decided to sleep in before hading to brunch at Brasserie. Located in Central West End, this is another one of our all-time favorite spots featuring French-inspired menu items and delicious cocktails. Dinner is amazing, but brunch is just too sweet to pass up there. Be sure to make reservations in advance! Don’t skip the beignets, either. A new favorite that I tried this time was their non-alcoholic pamplemule drink. Since we had so many cocktails the day before, this was a great addition to brunch without adding more alcohol.
After brunch, it was time to check out and head home. I was in luck that there was a local small business boutique pop-up happening at Olive and Oak in Webster Groves, but that’s a good spot to shop on any weekend if you’re wanting to peruse some local goodies. Or, head to the Boulevard Farmer’s Market any Sunday from 9am-1pm for unique local finds.
