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Straight On Down the St. Charles Strip

The "Pride of the Fox" has plenty to do.

Tuesday Mar 27, 2007.     By Karl Klockars

Travel + Tourism Feed

Unless you're going to IKEA, most Chicagoans won't consider venturing anywhere past Mannheim. But head 40 miles straight toward the sunset on North Avenue and you'll find yourself in St. Charles, where silent movies and bars with secret passwords make it more exciting than any Swedish shopping experience.

While the town is in the midst of major changes—the St. Charles lifers and their quaint, vintage homes now share land with the new money families and their sprawling McMansions—that old river-town feel still hangs in the air, reminding me of my boyhood. Sorting through my beer-drenched memories, I set out to find St. Charles still-intact gems.

As I drove through downtown proper, I was reminded of the old days, cruising into town in my 1975 Cadillac Eldorado convertible, car top-down and oldies on the radio in; it's hard to imagine a more movie-scene perfect approach to this Midwestern town. When the car crested the rise past Route 25, the whole Fox Valley strip opened up before me. A decade or so later, I've changed my wheels—for a sensible, fuel-friendly Honda—but the main streets of St. Charles remain the same.

Much as I love my ride, one of the best parts about the visit was abandoning the car once I got there. A suburban bar-crawl that doesn't involve cruising from strip mall to TGIFridays is a hard thing to fathom, but St. Charles's downtown places a half-dozen drinking establishments are within walking distance. I pulled into a street-side spot and hoofed it to my first destination: the Dog and Duck, 16 S. First Avenue, formerly known as the Scotland Yard.

As The Yard, the site was a friendly, spacious place with a fireplace, foosball and the coolest addition to any bar I'd seen—a hidden, upstairs bar only accessible through a secret door in a phone booth. I used to ask the bartender for "the password," ring upstairs on the functional phone, and be granted admittance, but on slow nights like tonight, only the downstairs remains open for business. My consolation prize: the view of the river across the street, a perfect accompaniment to the draft Magners I had in hand.

After throwing back a couple pints, I needed some entertainment to follow up my intoxicants, so I wandered west to the neon-lit marquis of the Arcada Theatre, 105 E. Main St. Starting as a vaudeville destination, this movie palace-era theater continues today with live musical events, Nostalgia Nights featuring silent films, sports games on the big screen, Rocky Horror showings and live organist performances before or during shows. Even though I'm a Sox fan, I appreciated that a theater would dedicate itself to screening films like the documentary "This Old Cub," so I stopped in for the flick. For its art-house content alone, this suburban goldmine is well worth the trek.

Truth be told, after the beer and the movie, I was ready to settle in at my visit's penultimate destination just across the bridge. Among the rest of the bars, taverns, pubs and margarita joints along the strip, you'd be hard pressed to find a more rousing, alcohol-soaked meat market than the Filling Station Pub & Grill, 300 W. Main St. Once an actual gas station, the bar transformed all the classic filling-station nostalgia into a retro beer garden outfit.

On warm evenings I used to camp out in the garden, not just to power back the bar's cheap Corona specials, but to stare at the cadre of salon-tanned St. Charles girls, not to mention the best damn looking waitstaff in town. Even as it cools down, the Station's outdoor heaters keep it populated late into the season, and the extensive menu of vehicle-themed eats (such as The 58 Edsel Dog) keep hunger at bay. As it was for this trip, I was happy to camp out inside at the small bar, enjoy a plate of wings and an Amstel. Just above freezing isn't my idea of beer garden weather.

If I still had steam in my engine, I imagine I'd have ended up at a few other places: the Cascade Drive-In (bring lawn chairs and a six-pack for best results) or the out-there Sycamore Speedway, a quarter-mile clay racetrack full of trashy glee, cheap freezing-cold beers, dusty air and (if you're lucky) exploding cars. I'll have to wait 'til next time, but I assure you, there'll be a next time.

Beat that, Aurora.