Filling Our Bellies And Filling Our Tanks

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This post is sponsored by Phillips 66®, all opinions are my own. #Phillips66 #LiveToTheFull

We’ve definitely had to change our lifestyle over the last 6 months. We are not on the go *quite* as much as we used to, and many of our favorite events and activities have been closed or look a little different. It was easy for us to get a little stir crazy, as you know we love to get out and go! One thing that we’ve enjoyed doing as a family is grabbing takeout and having picnic dates or parking lot parties in our trunk! Never thought I’d love my minivan as much as I do. ;) This way we can all get out of the house, go on a little drive, and still eat at some of our favorite restaurants for carryout or patio service!

Many businesses have been really hurt during the last six months, especially the local restaurant industry. Many are independently owned small businesses, and the loss of dine-in service and people not being out and about like normal has impacted them. We try to make a point to keep getting out to support some of our favorite local restaurants as they are helping keep our city fed!

We thought it would be really fun to get carryout at three of our favorite St. Louis restaurants for breakfast, lunch, and dinner! We spread it out over a couple of weekends to make it more fun, and we actually did them in the opposite order.

We also teamed up with Phillips 66 and gave each restaurant a handwritten thank you note and some gas cards to thank them for all of their hard work and keeping our city fed!

On Friday night BTR had a delivery to make, so after dropping it off we headed over to Grace Meat + Three in the Grove for a patio dinner. Grace never disappoints with awesome southern cooking and the best sides! If you’ve never had their chicken, drop what you are doing and go now!! The boys also love Grace so it’s always an easy decision to grab dinner there. You can order online for pick up or at their outdoor to-go window. They are also offering dine-in or on you can sit at one of the outdoor picnic tables.

As you can see there was no shortness of delicious food that night! Grace also offers a “Giving Grace” meal where part of the proceeds go back to the Gateway Resilience Fund or you can choose to donate the meal to someone in need. We love everything Grace is doing for the St. Louis community and we can’t wait to get back for another delicious meal!

The next day we headed out for a morning adventure at the Zoo and we were all hungry after walking around all morning. We put in an order at Balkan Treat Box in Webster Groves and headed over to pick it up!

The Balkan Treat Box Pide *might* be my favorite dish in all of St. Louis. Balkan has a giant wood-fired oven and they make all their bread fresh daily. Everything is so fresh and works amazing together. The boys both love a cheese Pide and Ezra loves the Ćevapi! We eat here way too often, but it’s hard not to go back! They are offering no-contact curbside pick-up and it’s so efficient to order online or call it in! If you’re looking for lunch this needs to be your next stop, but order early because they sell out! 

The next weekend we were back in St. Louis on a Saturday morning running a few business errands but before that, we had to stop at Nathaniel Reid Bakery to fill our sweet tooth and get all the pastries! They have layers and layers of delicious flaky pastries! Their store is a favorite of mine to pick up sweet treats for special occasions, or just because! Chef Reid was even named a James Beard Foundation Semifinalist in 2019 and 2020. You can either show up at the bakery and wait in line to order your goodies, or you can call in an order.

I would definitely recommend calling to order as they can sell out! We are all in love with their Kouign-Amann pastry. If you’ve never had one you are missing out!! They recently released their fall menu and the boys loved the maple pull aparts.

I even ordered an extra chocolate croissant to have for breakfast the next day. We had a little back of the van car picnic with some of our favorite local chocolate milk from Prairie Farms!

Talking about all this food has me hungry again! Thank you to three of our favorite restaurants for keeping our tanks full of food so we can live to the full this year! If you aren’t already, I encourage you to take an adventure to your favorite restaurant. So many of them are in need of our support and we want to make sure independently owned restaurants are still here on the other side of everything. They provide so many jobs and do so many good things for our community. Thank you to Phillips 66 for helping us support our favorite restaurants!