Ladue has always been a driving neighborhood. You get in the car for the grocery, get in the car for dinner, get in the car for the walk. That is starting to change in small, specific ways this summer, and the residents who notice will get more out of August and September than the ones still treating the corridor as three separate errands.
The thesis worth holding as you read
The central corridor is stitching itself into something closer to a walkable evening loop. A new first-in-state opening at 8853-Q Ladue, an evenings-only restaurant hidden behind a familiar café, a preserve trail that finally has a Phase 2 plan on paper, and a proposed off-street path along South 40 Drive are not four unrelated updates. They are the same story told from four angles. What follows is a working shortlist for the next few weekends, organized the way a resident actually moves through them.
Start with the trail
Deer Creek Preserve sits at 9810 S. 40 Drive on a 14-acre parcel of property owned by the City of Ladue, over 11 acres of which were devoted to a community open space for passive use such as a shared-use path for walking, running and biking, along with natural landscape restoration. If you have not been down since spring, three things are worth noting on the ground.
- A Little Free Library was recently added to the preserve, donated by a Wash U student, and it has become a small anchor for parents doing a morning loop with young kids.
- The pollinator plantings near the former mulch site are hitting late-summer bloom. Some of the trees were purchased through donations to Ladue's Living Legacy Fund and some through donations from the Garden Club of St. Louis and the Ladue Garden Club, and the Ladue Garden Club designed and planted a garden to attract pollinators such as bees, butterflies and moths.
- Phase 2 is moving from concept to grant application. The City of Ladue is collecting community input for the Phase 2 proposed looped trail and scenic overlook, and this data will potentially be used as part of the application for a Municipal Parks Grant in 2026.
Pair the preserve with a short detour to Rodes Park at Ladue and Warson. The City of Ladue, with participation from Garden Club of St. Louis and Ladue Garden Club members, is undertaking a longer-term plan for Rodes Park that includes a bridge, paths, benches and native plantings. It is still a small park, but the plan is what makes it interesting to walk this year versus next.
The City of Ladue's parks page has the current Phase 2 concept plan if you want to see the proposed loop before you take the community survey.
The Clayton Road cluster is doing something new
For years the strip between South McKnight and Highway 40 has been a drive-in errand row. This month it starts behaving like a compact evening cluster.
The clearest headline is Playa Bowls. Playa Bowls, operated under JARS by Fabio Viviani, is opening at 8853-Q Ladue in August as its first Missouri location. A first-in-state landing on Ladue Road is unusual on its own. What matters more is what sits next door and behind it. Companion Café still handles the breakfast and mid-morning half of the day. Ladue Taco takes the evening.
If you have driven past Companion a hundred times without noticing Ladue Taco, that is by design. The 900-square-foot restaurant is in the former Red-L Pizza/Dottie's Flour Shop at 9783 Clayton, guests enter via a walkway behind Companion, order and pick up from a counter or curbside, and can dine on the 40-seat patio after Companion closes at 3 p.m. The menu is deliberately tight. It features street tacos with a choice of eight fillings including chicken, ground beef, barbacoa, carne asada, chorizo, shrimp, breaded mahi mahi, and roasted vegetables.
The move most residents miss is treating the two as one address. Walk the Deer Creek loop at 6:30, park once at Companion's lot, order tacos at the counter behind the building, eat on the patio after the breakfast crowd has cleared, then walk across for a Playa Bowl on the way out. That sequence did not exist last August.
The Lindbergh side is for the sit-down evening
If the Clayton cluster is for the walk-and-eat evening, South Lindbergh is for the longer sit. Three rooms cover most of the range residents actually use.
| Room | Address | What it is best for |
|---|---|---|
| 801 Local | 2012 S. Lindbergh | Casual dinner, west-facing covered patio |
| Fleming's | 1855 S. Lindbergh | Steakhouse benchmark, remodeled 2024 |
| Kreis' | 535 S. Lindbergh | Old-guard prime rib, à la carte |
Fleming's has quietly been the most interesting of the three this year. Remodeled in 2024 and still under the tutelage of seasoned steakhouse veteran Ian Rockwell, Fleming's continues to feature steaks, a luxurious atmosphere, and quality sides, as well as daily specials. Kreis' is the counterweight. Generations of St. Louisans have dined at Kreis'. Everything's à la carte, the prime rib is a specialty, and the wines are affordable. If you are hosting out-of-town guests who want the classic version of the neighborhood, Kreis' is the shorter conversation.
For a slower Sunday, Sportsman's Park is the room most residents forget to book until they need it. It is a neighborhood favorite of long standing, and its bar remains a useful backup when the newer rooms are full.
The shop row is denser than most residents give it credit for
Between the trail and the patio there is still the shop stop. The mix has been steady enough that longtime residents underestimate what is actually within a five-minute drive.
Albarré Jewelry has been at 9711 Clayton since June 1976. Ladue Pharmacy still runs a soda fountain. Schnarr's Hardware has been in the community for decades and remains the fastest place to solve a Saturday morning problem without an app. Sign of the Arrow, the nonprofit needlepoint shop, is one of the few places in the metro where you can walk out with a hand-painted canvas. Ken Miesner's and Ladue Florist handle the last-minute entertaining flowers most people forget until Friday afternoon.
The other piece of the shop row is the Schnucks at 8867 Ladue Road, which finished a full remodel this spring. Schnuck Markets Inc. is celebrating the completion of a total-store remodel in Ladue, and the Midwest grocer has served the city of Ladue since 1962 and at the current location since 1993, employing 156 associates. The renovated 59,000-square-foot store includes updates to nearly every area and department, a renovated deli with new hot cases, an updated floral department, new refrigerated cases in dairy, frozen food, meat and produce, and a new and expanded e-commerce area for Schnucks Delivers and Curbside Pickup. The practical effect for evening cooks is a shorter deli line and a wider prepared-food case, which changes the calculus on whether you eat out or grill at home on a Wednesday.
What actually changes in the next year
Two developments are worth watching because they shift the ground under the evening loop described above.
The first is Deer Creek Preserve Phase 2. If the 2026 Municipal Parks Grant application lands, the preserve gets a second loop with benches and viewing platforms along the creek. Phase II will add a second trail loop with benches and viewing platforms along Deer Creek, a fundraising campaign will launch this year, and Ladue and the BOSTA committee are also in discussions to extend the preserve trail, partnering with local utilities, country clubs and residents to connect the preserve to nearby parks and into the Great Rivers Greenway, which operates 300 miles of trails in St. Louis County.
The second is the shared-use path along South 40 Drive. The city has flagged it on its home page as an active project alongside the Ladue Road water main relocation. The connection worth watching is what it would do to the walk from the residential blocks north of the preserve to the Clayton Road cluster. Right now that trip is a car trip. If the path lands, it becomes an off-street walk, and the Companion-to-Playa Bowls-to-Ladue Taco cluster becomes a walkable destination for a much larger set of households.
When the season shifts
By mid-October the Deer Creek loop stops being a warm-evening walk and starts being a leaf walk. By mid-November Tilles Park begins its setup for Winter Wonderland, the light show that has been a mainstay of the park every winter since 1985. The point is that the late-summer window is short. The residents who use it well are the ones who treat the preserve, the taco patio, the Playa Bowls opening, and the Lindbergh rooms as one sequence rather than four separate outings.
If you are thinking about how these changes affect the value of your block, or you have a friend who has been asking what is actually new in the neighborhood before they consider a move within it, Meggin Martin knows the corridor as a resident and as an advisor. Let's connect.
