54th Street Bar and Grill

There are a few joints back home that I have to visit at every opportunity, especially now that I live halfway across the country. One of those places is 54th Street Bar and Grill, a location that is definitely not on a 54th street. It’s booths are filled with mostly pleasant memories, and I have personally drained many a glass while sitting in those booths. Although the circumstances that last got me home were not the best, I took comfort in familiar food.

The place itself looks exactly like what you would expect of a place with ‘bar and grill’ in the name. It’s every wall is lined with booths, and the bar itself is almost directly in the center of the dining area. We had a seat in a booth at the far side of the building. It turned out to be a pretty quiet location to enjoy a late lunch. This is probably one of the first times I was in the building for a lunch. The crowd was much more laid back than the people who show up for dinner!

---

The one thing that you must always get at one of the 54th Street locations is their ‘gringo dip’. It’s a pretty simple white queso, but my god, is it delicious. I have more than once decided not to order an entree just so I could eat as much gringo dip as possible. Lucky for me, they serve it alongside a number of the entrees as a dipping sauce for fries, chips, etc.

Ordinarily, I would get something like a small steak. I didn’t trust myself to cook steak for awhile there, especially when steak was something special for my husband and I. I did not decide on that this time. No, it was a day to try something that stared me in the face for years. 54th Street boasts a ‘Mexican kitchen’ section of their menu, and it included a carnitas taco selection that was served with chicken taquitos by any other name.

This too was served with the gringo dip on the side, and it paired really well with the small taquitos that were laid beside the carnitas tacos themselves. I was pleased with the flavor overall, but after eating a ton of chips, dip, and fried cheese with my husband and my father, I really couldn’t get it all down. This was a common problem for me when I used to wind up here every time we were in O’Fallon.

These tastes of home are oddly comforting, even when I know it may be a very long time before I have them again. To know that this place lasts just as I remember it is a deep comfort.

​​