Popsy Straub started Straub's Markets in 1901 in Webster Groves, delivering groceries by horse-drawn carriage at the beginning. Today, they have four perfectly sized neighborhood markets in four great neighborhoods around St. Louis.
The CWE got one in 1949, and it's been a consistently faithful savior to the oh-no-i-forgot-to-prepare-something crowd ever since. Of course they are a full service grocery with all the food items you'd ever need, but their prepared foods are the stuff of legend and set Straub's apart from every other grocer in town.
The dominant presence in Straub's prepared food case? Chicken salad. A closely-held recipe since 1979, Straub's sells over 41 tons of chicken salad a year and it's legendary.
PRO TIP: I'm 100% certain that Straub's chicken salad on a Red-Hot Riplet will be served in Heaven.
Oh yeah — not only does the Straub's bakery make a great Gooey Butter Cake, but they are also the final purveyor of Miss Hullings Split Layer Cake, a nearly-forgotten legend of bygone St. Louis.
On the Tour
Taste the CWE for yourself
Straub's is one of the neighborhood mainstays we stop at on the Taste of Two Cities food tour — two miles of St. Louis history, architecture, and legendary bites through the Central West End.
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