Haven’t posted anything here in a couple of years.

From July 2016 thru August 2018 we spent most of our time in Birmingham. My dad passed away and we worked on the family home, cleaning things out and getting it ready to sell.

Now we are back in St. Louis. I am retired. Not that I’ll never work for money again but I haven’t for a while now. Since I am no longer doing a radio show and catering to advertisers nor am I currently doing PR, social and other marketing work for any food and beverage clients, I can be a bit more candid with my comments on this site.

Like, for instance, I can mention that the St. Louis magazine A-List party last week was a mess. The food was good and sometimes great. It was wonderful to see some folks I hadn’t seen in a long time. But the timing and the logistics were awful. The Sheldon was a bad venue for this event.

We arrived just before 6:00 p.m. and were told that the food would not be served until 6:45 p.m. because of an awards ceremony. We had not purchased tickets to attend an awards ceremony. We wanted to sample the food offerings. At about 6:20 a woman who was an event official told some of us who were waiting in a long line for drinks that she was going to close the bar so people would go to this awards ceremony. As she surveyed the long lines of thirsty people, she wisely reconsidered.

The food was served on three different levels at the Sheldon. Inconvenient but not something we couldn’t handle. Until we got to the third level. A band was playing. They were good. But they were too loud for that smallish room. It made conversation impossible.

The list of restaurants at the A-List party was impressive. Many of the best new joints in St. Louis. Most of the places offered good representations of their cuisine. A few phoned it in but I won’t name names. We got plenty to eat. And I had a couple of Goose Island beers that were tasty.

I understand that events like this party generate good revenue and visibility for the magazine. In my radio and PR work I have helped plan and execute events. My wife and I chaired a few school trivia nights with hundreds of attendees. So I know that events are not easy to pull off. Still, this one was a mess. (I used a less polite term on Facebook. A term that begins with “cluster.”) Let’s hope next year’s party will be better.

More to come.

—David Craig