Goods & Services >>

• Best Store For New CDs
  Vintage Vinyl
  At one time, not especially long ago, the discovery of a well-stocked record store -- and let's continue to call them that, despite the waning of wax -- was cause for ecstatic celebration. Today, with the dizzyingly vast resources of megastores and the Internet, finding a CD is more a problem of... More >>
• Best Store For Used CDs or Vinyl
  Vintage Vinyl
  Two winners here: Vintage Vinyl is the best place to buy used CDs, hands down. Their offerings, both at the flagship Delmar store and across the river in planet Granite (City), are so broad and varied that Vintage is the first place to stop if you're short on cash but long on musical desires.... More >>
• Best Place To Fix the Chandelier Your Uncle Swung From
  Faulkenberry Antique Lighting
  You can trust Billy Joe Faulkenberry with every teardrop of your antique crystal chandelier. Known as the "king of chandeliers," Faulkenberry is a middle-aged woman's ideal: He respects age, you see, and cherishes the most fragile beauty. He plays God in his little Cherokee workroom, making... More >>
• Best Veterinarian
  Millis Animal Hospital
  Perhaps it's the location, on Hanley south of Highway 40, easily accessible from just about anywhere (although it's still a bit of an exercise to squeeze onto the side street where you enter the office). More likely, though, it's the phalanx of friendly docs staffing the many examination rooms,... More >>
• Best Camera Store
  O.J. Photo Supply Inc.
  It's certainly not the biggest, and, judging from a few visits, it's certainly not the busiest. Local photo professionals tend to gravitate to Schiller's and City Photo, and camera-store chains, discount and big-box stores suck in the rest of the picture-taking crowd. If you do more than point... More >>
• Best Place To Find Comfy Shoes
  Sole Survivor
  Everyone's swirling around the ballroom floor, and you're in the corner drinking steadily. Your new Parisian beau wants to scale the Eiffel Tower, and you can't even make it to le metro. Painful shoes are sexy for about five minutes, until you realize the pain's made you cranky and all you want... More >>
• Best Liquor Store
  Stadium Liquor
  Pat McGlynn remembers the time Mickey Mantle came in for a bottle of scotch. "He was in town for an autograph show. That was before he quit drinking," explains McGlynn, 38. Other celebs have found their way to the unassuming liquor store just south of -- what else? -- Busch Stadium. Eddie Van... More >>
• Best Video Store
  Movies Unlimited
  Last year, Movies Unlimited, Maplewood's palace of video excess, carried St. Louis' Best Exploitation Video selection. This year, they take it all, and they've earned it. Depthwise, they've exponentially expanded their selection of disreputable Americana, from the trash classicism of Russ Meyer... More >>
• Best Place To Buy Retro
  Neon Lady
  The Neon Lady herself, proprietor LaDean Harlow, is a blond, pretty, talkative widow whose husband was bitten by a brown recluse spider right after they bought their dream home. Harlow just kept going, surrounded by Anheuser-Busch steins and trays, chrome deco telephones and toasters, old metal... More >>
• Best Museum Gift Shop
  Louisiana Purchase, Missouri History Museum
  Along with the usual touristy St. Louis keychains, postcards and paperweights, you'll find some unusual stuff here. Where else could you find a tile trivet with images of the Arena or Coral Court Motel for $16? There's also Lewis and Clark barbecue sauce, a made-in-Missouri product. Along with... More >>
• Best Place To Buy Imported Tchotchkes
  MacroSun Imports and Cultural Centre
  Looking for that perfect Ganesh carving or hand-woven kilim? Look no further than MacroSun Imports, which has recently added a second location in Webster Groves. Entering either store engulfs the shopper in a potent wave of incense complemented by background chants and indigenous music. Both... More >>
• Best Place To Buy Rock
  Kirkwood Material
  The soft stuff's easy: Plop down a few squares of zoysia; plant some daisies and petunias. But who wants a garden soft as Silly Putty? You need rock -- cobbles, flagstone, river stones around a pond. Slate edging for those petunias. Maybe a boulder or two for effect; it intimidates your... More >>
• Best Vintage-Clothing Store
  Pixie 9
  A good vintage-clothing store requires a delicate balance of quality, selection, price and idiosyncratic personnel. Pixie 9 succeeds on all counts. Opened last year by partners Kay and Janet, whose specialties include clothing from the 1940s-60s, the store especially stands out in its men's... More >>
• Best Cold Remedy
  Mai Lee
  The healing power of chicken soup becomes ancient Vietnamese medicine with pho ga. Just for the record, this isn't your mother's chicken soup. This is a high-octane power soup, delivered at Mai Lee in a huge bowl and guaranteed to cure what ails you, be it a cold or a hangover. Sure, pho ga has... More >>
• Best Place To Buy Yard Ornaments
  Cara Tera Landscaping
  Remember the gaggle of statuary that nearly caused accidents when cars rounded the first Manchester Road curve west of I-270? Everything you could imagine -- ducks and saints and statesmen -- stood row by row in concrete likeness. Now they've all marched north to Kirkwood, where they wait... More >>
• Best Nursery/Greenhouse
  Colors of Spring
  Despite the name, this lawn-and-garden business is one for all seasons (except when they close the retail store, January-February).Whether you're looking for annuals, perennials, seasonal flowers, flower pots, potting soil, mulch, cement or stone yard ornaments, wind chimes or flags to fly from... More >>
• Best Exterminator
  Race Pest Control
  Of all the pest guys to come and go, from big bug firms to small bug houses, few have been as versatile as Richard F. Race, certified commercial applicator. In one visit, this bug enthusiast will discuss subjects beyond the comparative analysis of ant and roach baiting and the sensitive handling... More >>
• Best Place To Buy Buttons
  Eunice Farmer Fabrics
  Buttons used to be a tiny art form, and at Eunice Farmer they still are. You'll find cut-glass jet buttons sparkly enough to wear as jewelry, carved African tigerwood, brushed-silver Roman medallions with a relief of Caesar's profile, miniature gold Louis XIV chairs, bronze suns inscribed with... More >>
• Best Place To Buy Comics
  Star Clipper
  On first entry, the cool, spacious Star Clipper may seem more like a "real" bookstore than a place to catch up on Spider-Man. That's the point. With rock music blaring and easygoing employees who know the tastes of their regular customers, the store is working overtime to give comic books a... More >>
• Best Place To Get Black Underground Movies
  Ghetto Koool Stuff
  In the heart of the South Side, Shaft lives again -- not the 1990s Samuel Jackson wannabe version but cool, old-school, Richard Roundtree Shaft. From the outside, Ghetto Koool looks more like the entrance to a flea market, but inside is a virtual treasure trove of black underground movies you... More >>
• Best Place To Get Your Motorcycle Fixed
  Bob Schultz Motorcycle Supermarket
  This being the "Best Of" edition, we won't talk about the nightmares: The Honda dealership (which will remain nameless) that charged $250 for a tune-up that consisted of an oil change and new plugs -- no new points or condenser, no attempt to adjust valves or synchronize carburetors. The one... More >>
• Best Place to Buy Cheap Antiques
  John's Furniture and Antiques
  The window sign calls them "Nic Nacs," and there's no telling what they'll be: Fine and tacky, faux and authentic rub up against each other, culled from the estates and attics of the dead. There's cranberry glass and a blue Cookie Monster cookie jar, a rampant Scottish lion on a wooden heraldic... More >>
• Best Import Store
  Gringo Jones Imports
  You could wander room to room for days and not see the same thing twice. What started out as a beauty shop in Webster Groves has exploded into a thriving import dealership in the city. A few years ago, Leon Jones had an idea, a few thousand dollars and a map of Mexico. He rented a truck and... More >>
• Best Place To Get Your Astrological Chart Done
  Essential Elements
  Wrecked your car? Divorced your wife? Feeling disaster breathing down your neck? Maybe it's time to find out just what direction your planetary winds are blowing. Magi Osiris Stargod, owner of Essential Elements, says, "If you find out which direction the planetary winds are blowing in your... More >>
• Best Place To Get a Tattoo
  Iron Age Studios
  The deeper they penetrate the skin, the bigger the tears are going to be that well at the corners of your eyes and the harder your jaw's gonna clench. But if you want the tattoo to last forever, to be clean and crisp for a long time, a few hours' worth of pain is worth it. The ladies and... More >>
• Best Amenities At a Car Wash
  Gas House Express
  Maybe you don't feel the need to watch an auto on closed-circuit TV as it goes through the car wash. But if you wanted to do that, as you ate a White Castle cheeseburger or a 25-cent bag of theater-style popcorn, you could at Gas House Express Car Wash, at the corner of the Forest Park Parkway... More >>
• Best Hair Salon
  Thu Do Hair Design
  With caramel-colored highlights in his glossy black hair, delicate European manners and a sardonic sense of humor, Hung Pham, whose American name is Victor, would seem, on first acquaintance, better suited to a chi-chi salon in downtown Clayton than to a charming but tired-looking storefront on... More >>
• Best Place To Stretch $20
  Globe Discount Variety
  Looking for a bottle of Gee Your Hair Smells Terrific! or a porcelain toothpick dispenser bearing the likeness of an inebriated frog? How about a fuzzy fuchsia acrylic sweater, toy-poodle size, or a six-pack of bargain-basement beer, the sight of which conjures pleasant adolescent memories of... More >>
• Best Pharmacy
  Lindenwood Drug
  Folks in this South St. Louis neighborhood call Tom Hunt the Medicine Man, a fitting title for the Lindenwood Drug owner. Not only does he dispense remedies for others, he managed to cure his own business ailments. This independent businessman has held fast in an industry dominated by megachains... More >>
• Best Tailor
  Lyuba Bukhstaber, Perfect Fit Tailor Shop
  To walk into Lyuba Bukhshtaber's shop in U. City is to greet a warm and wonderful person. Lyuba, who hails from Minsk, Belarus, has a magnificent accent and a charming way -- it doesn't hurt that she and her staff can handle any job that comes their way with aplomb, either. Lyuba's sartorial... More >>
• Best Florist
  Alex Waldbart Florist
  Summer can be downtime for florists. There are no "flower holidays" like Mother's Day or Easter. Besides, people have flowers in their yards, fresh for the picking. The recent seasonal lull, however, certainly was not apparent at Waldbart's. A family business since 1872 and one of the... More >>
• Best Fine-Jewelry Store
  Adler's
  Diamonds may be a girl's best friend, but it's the boys who usually shop for them, and it's the boys who must endure the blandishments of the smooth gentlemen behind the jewelry-store counter, who blithely rattle off the subtler points of the four C's, the two-months'-salary equation and the... More >>
• Best Place To Buy (and Sell) Stereo Equipment
  Alpha Tech Electronics
  Nothing beats the sound of music coming out of a tube amp. You can't top the deep, deep sound of a well-pressed piece of vinyl played on a nice turntable. If you're a CD nut, the sound had better be funneled through huge floor speakers, not weak, "sensible" bookshelf speakers. If you like your... More >>
• Best Place For Used Clothing
  Women's Closet Exchange
  This place has lots for women looking for style on the cheap. With offerings ranging from $50 Emmanuel suits and Armani "clubbing" dresses, $12 Ann Taylor blouses, $7 Gap jeans and $3 Banana Republic T-shirts, there are choices for most occasions. Best buy: a Calvin Klein cashmere wrap/shawl... More >>
• Best Chain For Cheap Deals
  Big Lots
  Searching through Big Lots for bargains is fun. You might come away with anything from a camping lantern to an end table to a bag of green-plastic army men, and you know it's all going to be nice and cheap. Each week, another shipment of shelf-filler rolls in, and it's time to go a-hunting... More >>
• Best Mall
  Saint Louis Galleria
  Let's agree that malls are terrible things: enablers of suburban sprawl, undeserving beneficiaries of TIFs, destroyers of vital downtowns, promoters of unchecked consumerism. Let's also admit that most of us -- excepting misanthropes, anarchists and unreconstructed Marxists -- make at least an... More >>
• Best Personal-Injury Law Firm
  Lakin Law Firm
  Of the multitude of personal-injury lawyers who represent the little guy, on and off TV, Lakin Law Firm, in Wood River, Ill., has a steady track record of getting verdicts that run in the millions. As recently as two years ago, a $9 million jury verdict Lakin got was challenged in the appeals... More >>
• Best Place To Buy Outdoor Fireplaces
  LeLu Metalcraft & Patio Shop
  Remember when all those clay Mexican fire pits started popping up in the unlikeliest neighbors' back yards? You don't see many of them anymore, do you? Turns out nobody checked on St. Louis winters before hauling them across the border, and they cracked. If you're still hankering for that... More >>
• Best Deal On Caskets and Funeral Stuff
  Abbey Direct Casket Outlet
  It is not a funeral parlor, and there are no cadavers for miles, which makes the concept all the more novel -- shopping for a casket the way one might shop for a telephone. Third-party casket sales became feasible after a 1994 Federal Trade Commission ruling ended the practice of funeral homes'... More >>
• Best Used-Book Store (1 Comment)
  Subterranean Books
  You won't be scolded when browsing the stacks at Subterranean Books; no one will spy to make sure you pull the book off the shelf the "right" way, nor will they give you a sideways glance if your purchase is "lowbrow" or "popular." They're nice people who obviously love the "previously owned and... More >>
• Best Place For Sex Toys
  Adult Entertainment Co. Discount Store
  Forget the high-priced boutiques that keep bankers' hours. When you're hard up in the wee hours, head to the East Side and beautiful downtown Brooklyn for bargains galore at the Adult Entertainment Co. Discount Store. It's ratty, just a converted mobile home scrunched up next to the Platinum... More >>
• Best Massage On the Cheap
  Missouri College Student Massage Clinic
  Although some may flinch at the notion of trusting their locks to beauty-college students, only the most elitist should hesitate to offer their bodies to the cause of education. Missouri College offers massage training and licensure (an associate's degree in occupational studies), preparing... More >>
• Best Place To Get a Regular Haircut
  Larry Evilsizor Barber Stylist
  You can judge a barber shop by its magazines. The rack at Larry Evilsizor's shop holds Field & Stream, Popular Science and National Geographic, stalwart reading matter for the men and boys who parade through the door of this unassuming tonsorial cubbyhole with its jars of talc and bottles of... More >>