Review: O'Connell's Pub in St. Louis

The Guru considers it a compliment when people ask about his "favorite restaurant," but the difficulty is to answer directly. I have many favorites, depending on season, or budget, or what I ate the night before. Therefore, I try to hedge, asking about price range, or allergies, specific likes or, more frequently, dislikes. But when someone begins to discuss hamburgers, the response is quick and easy: "O'Connell's for the fat ones, Carl's Drive Inn for the thin ones with crispy edges."

O'Connell's marked its 30th anniversary at the Kingshighway-and-Shaw location on Sept. 1, and while Jack Parker, long-time owner and the original fry cook, has kept it breezing along, its neighbors have upgraded from a pasta factory and a metal foundry to Peter Raven and the folks at the Missouri Botanical Garden.

I've been eating hamburgers at O'Connell's from its Gaslight Square days, and I'm positive that the burgers today are prepared and cooked to be exactly the same as they were in 1972. The 10-ounce hamburger, always cooked as ordered, arrives juicy and hot, naked on a bun. You want onions, either fried or raw? Ketchup? Mustard? Steak sauce? Any combination thereof? Do it yourself; then you always have the correct amount, or at least you can't complain. No sliced tomatoes, however. The Guru has discovered that Parker doesn't like them and, therefore, the restaurant does not stock them. He does, however, buy his meat from Kuna, his supplier for more than 30 years.

Like all good saloons, O'Connell's has a simple, proven menu, at prices that are a superior value. The hamburger, at $4.50, is a bargain, and the giant roast beef sandwich, on a long roll, is a steal at $5. Other sandwiches from the grill are a cheeseburger (Swiss or cheddar) or a chicken breast, each $4.75; grilled cheese or hot dog, $3.50; and a Coney Island, $5.

Cold sandwiches include corned beef or tuna salad at $4.50, turkey or salami at $4. And there are chilled boiled shrimp, $7.50 for six and $13.50 for a dozen; house salad, $2.50 or $3.50; cole slaw, $1.25; onion rings, $2 or $3.50; french fries, $1.75; fried mushrooms, $3; and soup or chili, $3.

The specials, on a Monday-Sunday road, are baked ham, $4.75; Reuben, $5; jambalaya (either regular or vegetarian), or Italian sausage and peppers, $4.75; roast pork, the favorite of Mrs. Guru, $5; fish and chips, $5.85; barbecued rib tips, $5.50; and hot chicken wings, $4.75.

There are daily soups, and I'm fondest of the ham and bean, though the clam chowder has fans, too. I used to be a great fan of the sausage and peppers, but the fry cooks no longer cook the peppers until their edges are blackened and all the crispness of the peppers is gone. The sausages are satisfactory; they used to be remarkable.

On the other hand, the french fries are first-rate and the onion rings have climbed from third-rate to first-rate. For a long time, the onions were in a thick, tough batter that often slid off the onion ring to provide separate and undistinguished flavors. Recently, the batter has been thinner and more flavorful, and the onions are now delicious. The next step is to get a similar process for the mushrooms. If a role model is needed, try the Village Bar.

The roast beef sandwich comes with some very good horseradish sauce, and I think it‘s the same horseradish that gives the shrimp sauce some excellent pop in the throat on the way down. Salads are satisfactory; so is cole slaw.

O'Connell's has come a long way through the years. There's a hostess on duty at weekend lunches, and printed menus on each table. For a long time, a couple of chalkboards did the trick, but some of the waitresses – and long-time customers, too – began to complain that advancing age made it more difficult to read the choices. The menu had long been memorized, but the memory needs refreshing from time to time.

Decor at O'Connell's hasn't changed much through the years, though there once were pool tables, replaced by dining tables. Parker's antiques shop resides upstairs, and there are some lovely pieces to shop, to admire, even to buy.

Service has an idiosyncratic flavor. Nora, the soft-spoken night-time presence who seems to glide rather than walk, has been on hand since the Gaslight Square days. Same with Leonard, the daytime bartender. Red Garner, who also came from the Boyle Avenue location, retired last spring. Parker did most of the fry cook work for many years, now has passed much of the managerial duty to his nephew, Fred.

The Guru has a rich store of O'Connell's memories, many from the first location. I knew the various owners like Jack and Jerry and Harvey and Frank, and many who sat at the bar and drank and talked through long afternoons and evenings. I interviewed Howard da Silva, the original Jud from "Oklahoma!" when he came here to play Benjamin Franklin in a Muny production of "1776," and I had lunch there one February Saturday with a striking redhead named Jada, who wore skin-tight chartreuse pants and a tight white sweater with lots of sequins. She was in town to be the headliner at the late, much-lamented Grand Theatre, the downtown burlesque house. Jada was a stripper, based in Dallas, and she had been the headliner at Jack Ruby's club during the Kennedy Assassination weekend. I had called her earlier that morning to confirm the lunch date and she was screaming happily about the fact that Ruby had just been sentenced to die for the shooting of Lee Harvey Oswald. Jada did not like Ruby at all.

At the Kingshighway location, I spent a lot of time with Martin Quigley, the sage of Fleishman-Hillard, and with many, many other fine people. The Post-Dispatch editorial writers would lunch there most Saturdays, at the large round table in the back room. And the conversation was always worthy. Newspaper types – past, present and future – were in strong supply, and the absence of a television set cut down on distractions and intrusions. The bar at O'Connell's was more of a press club than any edition of the St. Louis Press Club ever was.