The Mud House

The Mud House is one of the fixtures of Cherokee Street: a coffee house that does a full kitchen, and one of the places people name when asked where to eat on this stretch of south St. Louis. It occupies a storefront at 2101, in the middle of the antiques end of the street, with a patio that fills up as soon as the weather allows.

Coffee comes first. The house drip is roasted by Broadway Roasting Company of Kansas City, and the espresso bar runs the full range of drinks beyond it. Tea is taken as seriously as the coffee rather than kept as an afterthought for whoever came along with the coffee drinker.

What sets the Mud House apart from a coffee bar is the food, and breakfast in particular. Biscuits and gravy, a breakfast burrito with a considerable reputation, and French toast are what regulars come back for; sandwiches, wraps and soups carry the room through lunch and into the early evening. It is a menu built for people who intend to sit down rather than carry out, though carry-out and online ordering are both available.

The room itself is part of the appeal – rustic, worn in the way an old storefront gets worn rather than the way a designer imitates, and comfortable enough that people bring books and laptops and stay. Between the inside tables and the patio, it works as a meeting place as much as a cafe, which is a large part of why it turns up in visitors’ guides to the street and in locals’ directions alike.

For anyone working through Cherokee Antique Row on foot, the Mud House sits about halfway along it, and it is the obvious place to stop between shops.