Frank Moskus in Exile (Lemay, Clayton: house, yard, office)

[anduarto]

Anybody remember a little greek bar in south city called "Frank Moskus in Exile"?

It was more or less a bar in somebody's house with outdoor seating in the back yard in warm weather. We went there a lot and it was always pretty busy. I can't even remember where it was exactly (I usually became rather inebriated). Not far from the river I think, but not Soulard...Bevo area maybe?

Anybody else lucky enough to have been there? Couldn't possibly still exist...right?

Meanwhile I'll go to the Olympia on McCausland. Great greek place. Yum.

[Bobster]

I never heard of it....maybe it WAS somebody's house with some chairs set up? Used to be a place like that in Lemay. Good luck finding out about it!

[anduarto]

Ya know, Bobster, I thought if anyone on this thing knew about Frank Moskus it would be you!

Pretty sure the building started life as a house but they had "converted" it to a large extent. There was an entry that led immediately into a fairly large room with a bar and tables. Had some great times there. Music. Sometimes there were belly dancers.

Beginning to think I made it all up.

Something else I'm beginning to wonder if I dreamed: Anybody remember people setting up make shift watermelon stands in their front yards in the summer? This was mostly when I was very young and air conditioning wasn't yet ubiquitous. They'd set up long tables, serve watermelon, corn on the cob out of big pots, occasionally barbeque ribs...

Good lord, sounds like I'm either hallucinating or I'm WAY old.

[st. louie louie]

Frank Moskus' place was on Gravois near Bevo Mill. His wife was Turkish (i believe). She used to belly dance there. I sold him PA equipment for the bar.

[aragx6]

Guess ya didn't dream it anduarto!

[st. louie louie]

There was a watermelon stand at Gravois & Chippewa. It was fairly large. We used to walk there in the hot humid summers.

[Bobster]

Don't remember the watermelon stands, but I do remember the little snow cone stands that would pop up throughout the city. Speaking of snow cones, I remember when Tom Eagleton was campaigning WAYYYYY back in the day for some office and he rode around in a truck giving away snow cones....anybody else remember him doing that or am I dreaming?

How about the guy with the tamale cart who used to roll it through South City?

[st. louie louie]

We had "the knife man" An old man that would push a large cart through the streets ringing a bell. The cart is in the History Museum.

Or...the paper boys pulling carts with metal wheels on Saturday evening. Yelling..."Post & Globe paaaapers

And when I was really young, there was a donut truck that came around.

[TGS]

There are still snow cone stands in the city in the summer. We went to a few last summer after softball games.

I also like the guy who sells pretzels from a stand in the middle of the road on Jamison. Sometimes they have kids selling pretzels outside the churches on Sunday in South City. How convenient!

[anduarto]

I remember the tamale man! Wow! Talk about things I thought I'd made up! I only saw him once or twice but he was great!

Thanks for all the replies. I guess I'm not completely delusional after all.

Is Frank Moskus - the man or the bar - still around? It really was a great place. So, Mrs. Moskus was turkish, huh? My life partner is turkish. I'll have to tell him. Frank was greek, right? Ah, true love overcomes all barriers.

I remember the snow cone stands. Nothing like a snow cone on a warm summer evening. My favorite was a snow cone place near Deaconess Hospital right where Clayton and Berthold came to a wedge. Hippie place (or at least that's how the locals referred to it). Quite possibly the coolest snow cone stand my pubescent friends and I ever came across.

As for pretzel guys, there was a man who sold them on Sunday - mostly in the winter - on River Des Peres Drive and, what, Morganford maybe? The benchmark by which I've rated every soft pretzel I've ever had since. Delicious.

Does stuff like this still exist? I kind of feel sorry for kids growing up in a world of Starbuck's and Cinnabons.

As for the paper boys, for several months I was one of those kids pulling the metal wheeled carts on Saturday night. It was my friend's route and he asked me to split with them. You had to remember which house got a paper and which house didn't. There was one door I went to mistakenly almost every Saturday night. The man would shake his head and, with typical midwestern kindness, tell me very nicely, no, he didn't get a paper.

Geez, I miss the midwest. Thanks for indulging this little stroll down memory lane.