St. Louis Bread Company, Saint Louis

Very casual, attractive, clean chain of bakery cafes, with comfortable furniture, warm colors & arty graphics on the walls. Breads, large array of incredible baked sweets, sandwiches, soups, salads and some pretty good drinks. Popular with all ages & open every day - they're all over the urban area & suburbs. I just noticed a new location on Forest Park Ave. near the Barnes Jewish Medical Center, yesterday!

In other parts of USA, they call it Panera, but it started here in St. Louis, as "St. Louis Bread Company" - - nicknamed "Breadco" by many locals!

Favorite Dish: I love their muffins, brownies & pannini sandwiches. The bagels are great, too. Sometimes I just stop in for a loaf of their wonderful sourdough to take home! They'll slice it for you.
THEIR WEB SITE HAS RECIPES!

Of course there are too many great resteraunts to name. Imo's pizza is a STL original. But I guess the most famous resteraunt from STL is the St. Louis Bread Company.
Their bread is always fresh.

Favorite Dish: They have awesome sandwhiches and bagels--every kind you can think of. I recommend the blueberry bagels.

You may know this as Panera Bread in other cities, but this is where it all started. The bread and philosopy were kept in tact when St. Louis Bread was bought by Au Bon Pain. And a couple of good ideas from ABP were adopted, as well.

I would normally not recommend a chain, but the food here is outstanding!

Oh, and they have FREE WiFi!

Favorite Dish: Chicken and Wild Rice Soup, any of their sandwiches, House Latte (with cinnamon and nutmeg), great bagels and cream cheese.