Sqwires

Sqwires is located on Park Ave in the Lafayette Square area of St. Louis. We frequent this area often, but had never dined here before. Thanks to a $25 gift card from Restaurant.com (cost? $2!), we decided to try it out for the first time. I'm disappointed that we hadn't been before considering that it's less than 5 minutes from our house and the food was pretty impressive.

Located in the former Western Wire Factory, Sqwires is a beautiful renovation of an old Victorian building.  The factory once housed the American Bed Factory.  While perserving elements of the 19th century, they also added in a handcrafted steel fireplace along with the red leather banquette along the back wall.  We sat in the corner seat that you can see at the end of the banquette.

The name was chosen to be a combination of Lafayette Square Park and Western Wire.

My favorite part of the decor?  The hanging pendant lights above each table on the banquette.  They had taken glass bottles and vases and removed the bottoms to string an electrical wire through it.  A light bulb was added at the top along with an old glass light fixture.  I loved the eccentric element and thought that it fit in perfectly with the mix of old and modern elements of the building.

Another interesting thing of note were the tables themselves.  I'm not exactly sure what the tops were made of, but it looked like cardboard.  You could even feel the grooves in the texture if ran your hangs along it.

While renovating the building, they also restored the overhead factory pulley system and the industiral ceiling fans. 

This came out darker than I had hoped, but it lets you see how each of the windows was tastefully decorated.  The curtains were a dark red silk with little white roses adorning them.

I loved the touch of assorted pillows scattered along the banquette.

Sqwires is another St. Louis restaurant that prides itself on using local foods, free range chickens, etc. 

We started off with the bruschetta.  I have to admit that I wasn't a huge fan of it.  For starters, it was HUGE.  Not the typical bite size pieces that you see.  Also, it had a slice of ham on each one.  Who puts ham on bruschetta?

For dinner, I enjoyed the beef brisket sandwich with homemade potato chips and cole slaw.  It came highly recommended from our waiter and did not disappoint.  It's served on bread from a bakery on The Hill.  The brisket had a fantastic flavor and I absolutely loved the bread that it was served on.  I could have just eaten a loaf of it and been happy!

Tony had a steak that he proclaimed was delicious.  High praise from him since he's not a huge fan of many of the foods here in St. Louis!