Gus’ Pretzel Shop

Gus’ Pretzels has been twisting pretzels by hand at the same address since the 1950s and by the same recipe since 1920, which makes it one of the oldest continuously running food businesses in south St. Louis.

It began with Frank Ramsperger, a riveter who was injured at work and needed another way to feed his family. He started making pretzels and selling them as a street vendor off Jefferson Avenue in 1920. The business grew, and in the 1950s he bought the building at 1820 Arsenal Street – a former bakery, and conveniently placed just across the highway from the Anheuser-Busch brewery, which is exactly the customer a pretzel maker wants nearby.

The name comes from his son-in-law, Gus Koebbe, who took the business over in 1952. It has stayed in the Koebbe family ever since and is now in its third generation. The recipe has not changed, and neither has the method: every pretzel is twisted by hand rather than stamped out by machine, which is why no two of them look quite alike.

Beyond the plain soft pretzel the counter runs to pretzel sandwiches, pretzel sticks, and the stuffed varieties that have become a St. Louis tailgating institution – a pretzel wrapped around a bratwurst is a normal thing to eat here in a way it is nowhere else. The shop supplies ballparks, festivals and half the parties in the city, and on a busy morning the queue reaches the door.

Gus’ stands in Benton Park, a short walk south and east of Cherokee Street, and it is one of the landmarks people use to give directions in this part of town.