Fox Sports Midwest Live!
601 Clark Avenue #103We didn’t just decide to go to St. Louis. There was actually a plan in place far in advance of this becoming a family trip.
This actually all started when the group I go to a baseball game with every summer decided to expand to two, maybe three games instead of the usual one White Sox game.
My buddy from high school, we’ll call him K for this post, is a Cubs fan…with a partial season ticket package to the White Sox…and now the Cardinals. We grew up about 60 miles from Chicago which is where my parents and brother still live. K lives much closer to St. Louis and his wife is a big Cards fan. The opportunity to buy 10 games as part of someone else’s season ticket package came up and he couldn’t pass it up. The four of us (K, my dad, my brother, and I) always do a White Sox game. This year, we decided to add on a Cardinals game.
J and I decided to make the trip to St. Louis a family trip. I got a killer hotel deal for Friday and Saturday night, so I was going to meet everyone else down there. After our trip to The Magic House, I had to take L swimming. The pool was on the roof of a 30 story building overlooking the Arch…we HAD to go swimming.
My dad, brother, and K got to town about 3:30 for a 6:00. In Chicago, we tailgate…hard. We pick up wings and drink a few beers before heading in to the stadium. You can’t tailgate in St. Louis. The reason…well, they built an entertainment complex and want you to drink their beer instead of bringing your own.
Ballpark Village is actually a pretty great thing. There are a number of restaurants including a Howl at Moon, Budweiser Brew House, Drunken Fish, and Cardinals Nation to name a few. For some reason, my group chose none of those and instead chose something completely different.
As I walked from my hotel to Ballpark Village, I was texting with my brother. They had already gotten a table at a restaurant and needed my order. He told me they were at Cardinals Nation. The menu there looked pretty good and I started throwing things out that I wanted to eat. He kept telling me none of those were on the menu. I was so confused, but he eventually texted me a picture so I just chose of that. Turns out, they weren’t at Cardinals Nation.
They were actually at the space called Fox Sports Midwest Live! This place is a really interesting vibe for a pregame meal.
The dining space is cavernous and the dome is actually a retractable roof just like you would see at a ballpark. All the seating on game day is first come first serve so my brother actually stalked a table and waited right behind them as they paid their bill.
The restaurant has more of a cafeteria feel to me than a restaurant. There are giant TV screens on one wall that were showing other games. This is the reason my buddy always goes to this place instead of one of the restaurants. I don’t really get it, but I was along for the ride.
As I mentioned, my brother ordered my food while I was walking over there. As luck would have it, the waiter was bringing out the plates just as I walked in. I sat down and asked for a 312 to drink. Both my brother and my dad couldn’t figure out how I knew they had 312. I could have just said I passed four bars inside the space on my way to the table, but I also reminded them that AB InBev owns Goose Island now.
There wasn’t a lot to choose from food wise. They had a couple burgers but the only one that sounded good to me was the Cheesy Burger. The sandwich is two 4 oz. patties topped with cheese sauce, cheddar cheese, and a peppercorn mayo. I had my brother keep the mayo off the sandwich. What was left was tasty, but nothing out of the ordinary. The cheese sauce was like ballpark nacho cheese sauce and it pretty much drowned out the cheddar. The bun was actually pretty tasty though.
The burgers all came with fries. Like the burger, they were good, but nothing that really stood out. There was a good amount of them so that helped fill me up before heading in to the ballpark where the food would be just slightly more expensive than it was outside at Ballpark Village.
Fox Sports Midwest Live! is all about atmosphere. The FSN network does part of their pregame show from the space and the Cardinals hype man gets the crowd going and ready to cheer on their baseball team. If you’re looking for a fun place to hangout, drink, and watching a game…this is it. I would have liked to have tried out one of the actual restaurants, but this experience was pretty cool. It still doesn’t compare to our tailgating experience at U.S. Cellular Field in Chicago….but the whole Ballpark Village thing is a pretty cool idea to get the crowd pumped up before heading in to the gates.
Cheesy Burger w/Fries
SW Michigan Dining 