The Purple Martin

went for the first time last night. so cute! cozy atmosphere. nice décor. very clean. the two bartenders (Roderick and a young lady idk her name) i encountered were super nice and friendly, as are the other patrons. good drinks. had the pretzel app — crispy and buttery outside, soft warm inside. look forward to warmer weather on the patio and trying more menu items. the only thing i would change is adding lunch hours.

My wife and I have been searching for a neighborhood bar since we’ve moved into our south city neighborhood. Many of the bars within walking distance aren’t worth Unilocaling about. When we stumbled upon the Purple Martin Saturday afternoon, we knew we had to stop in. After dropping our dog off, we went up for a drink before our dinner reservations and had a great experience! With neighborhood bars, I believe the things that matter most are a solid cocktail list and friendly bartenders — this place had both! The bartender took the time to find out what my wife likes and dislikes to be sure he suggested the best cocktail. She was impressed, as was I. We didn’t try the food but will be sure to do so next time. We’ll def be back!

I’ll start off by admitting that I wasn’t overly impressed with this place the first few times I tried it after they opened. I LOVE what they have recently done with the new menu though. It’s more casual — sandwiches and such. They’re doing a weekly «Sandwich War» now where customers can submit ideas for sandwiches. I suggested a Falafel Gyro and BOOM, three days later it was on the menu (pitted against a Prosciutto sandwich). We ordered both of them to go and they were AWESOME. I have to admit, I’m a bit of a falafel snob. If it’s on a menu, I’ll order it. So I know a good falafel when I taste it. This is some of the best I’ve had. The texture was perfect (nice and crunchy on the outside). I ordered hummus as a side and it was really good. The only reason I didn’t give it five stars is because you only got two little chips with the big scoop of hummus. Other than that, I loved it!

Great ambiance, friendly staff, the soup is great, sloppy joe is awesome. Love this place so much. Live right down the street and waited way too long to try this place. Will be back!

The Purple Martin is a great find for both cocktails and food! I have yet to taste something here that isn’t phenomenal!
Try the Jack Rose cocktail or their champagne cocktail (don’t recall its name at the moment). They have a decent selection of local beers in bottles– 4 Hands, Urban Chestnut, Schlafly. Also have a wine list so everyone will be able to find something to their taste.
While their menu is a limited in size, what they do offer is very tasty and well done! I really like their pretzel appetizer because the pretzels are fluffy and soft, served hot with a delicious ale cheddar dipping sauce. Yum! The baked Brie is also melty and delicious and is served with an apricot preserve and crackers.
For dinner, my husband thoroughly enjoyed their Spaghetti Bolognese and he is usually very picky when it comes to pastas with red or meat sauce. He ordered it both times we came! I love their flatbreads because they are the right size for 1 person, plus they use roasted garlic which adds a great flavor!

Cubano fanstastico!!! They bring in their bread from Miami and it shows. Wings enjoyable. Burger very good. We did not have great luck with the skirt streak and tilapia. Respectable beer selections. Good cocktails. Nice outdoor patio but be prepared for frequent traffic.

I’ve been hoping the Purple Martin would put a burger on the menu, and they have! And it is truly outstanding… grass fed beef, hand-​formed patty, and simply one of the best burgers I’ve had in quite some time… Thick, mid-​rare like I like it, great house-​made aioli, great house-​made chips. Seriously, I’ll be eating the heck out of these!
And, as always, great brie cheese app, and wonderful flatbread.
And did I mention that most classic cocktails are $ 6?! We’re really fortunate to have this great neighborhood bistro in our area.

I had dinner with my father last week at the Purple Martin. The experience was OK. We shared the Mango Jerk Wings for an appetizer. I had the BBQ Jerk Chicken Sandwich and my father had the Shrimp Diablo Linguini. Their menu reads awesome. I wanted to love it. I really did. The truth is nothing was bad but nothing was exceptional either. When I go somewhere new or even somewhere I really like I keep thinking about it afterwards. In this case I enjoyed my meal but I didn’t think about it at all afterwards and I wouldn’t rush back. We both felt the portions were slightly small, the prices were slightly high, and the flavor just wasn’t there.

We got our food delivered so I can’t say much about the service but the food was great. It made this florida girl very happy to eat yummy Caribbean food in STL.
Jerk chicken wings without the mango glaze. They were very good but a bit on the small side.
Ropa veija was delish and my hubby like that the plantains weren’t super sweet.
Plantain fritters with coconut chicken sauce had great savory flavor.
Hearts of palm salad was tasty but the dressing was a little too sweet.

First time here and we came for our date night. I love the atmosphere. Outside seating, casual bar area, dining area, plus a ton to the side for larger parties, made the interior very comfortable.
Started with baked brie. I could have made a great review from that alone. Baked with garlic and served with apricot preserves.
For dinner I had Pescado Encocado: cod marinated in orange and lime sauce, cooked in coconut sauce, served with rice and fried plantains. Added shrimp… And it was phenomenal! The flavors were beautiful. You could taste the line and cilantro in the rice.
I’ll definitely be back! Great date night spot.

This used to be my Favorite neighborhood bar. However I am not sure if they are under new management or whatever… but the last 3 times I have gone the best servers have not been there. I was a little leary of going today but I went to have one cocktail with friends. First the server was like 12 years old and not experienced. .didn’t know what they had… took a million years to bring drinks. Then she spilled a full glass… a tall cocktail all over me! She was so nonchalant and asked me did I want a complimentary scoop of ice cream!!! What!!! I declined and she brought it any way! Didn’t even offer to pay for the spilled drink! Why in the world would someone want to be wet from head to toe… and eat ice cream?! Bring back the other team… this team is horrible!

Really cool little bar tucked away in the fox park neighborhood. It has nice interior décor with a mix of a nice friendly café on one side and a hip neon bar on the other. The food is delicious, especially the cuban. The various plantain items are very good as well. The Caribbean flatbread is the perfect blend of sweet and spicy. Their cocktails are very tasty as well. Their old fashioned is a favorite of mine. I highly recommend the signature cocktail as well. Great place for a quiet evening out or a fun time with friends.

Still 5 stars! Stopped by randomly for Valentine’s Day Dinner. YUM! Platain flatbread and Cajun Flatbread. So delicious. Of course, I had the purple martin. It’s just as wonderful as I remember. Then, had the Banana’s Foster. OMG… So decadent, a perfect romantic dessert to «share». They used a real high quality ice cream, it was just as rich as the chocolate fudge, the bananas were cooked to a perfect consistency. Really chill Valentine’s Day and perfect atmosphere. In addition, our waitress, Kate, was really sweet and took great care of us.

I really want to see them succeed. The Good the Bad and and the Ugly.
The Good– good design and staff is great.
The Bad– horrible craft beer list. Places like this should have an amazing craft beer choice.
The Ugly– we ordered the wings and they came out the size of our pinky finger. In fact we laughed out loud when they came out they were a joke. I have never seen chicken wings this small. They were a nibble each and on top of that they took a long long time with 3 other people in the bar.
My suggest give people more meal for their money, step up food service and get a large craft beer list.

Forty dollars later I went home and made macaroni and cheese because I was still really hungry. A $ 7 dollar salad was about the size of a dinner roll. The $ 9 (said $ 8 on the menu online) baked brie was a wedge the size of a silver dollar. The «flatbread», fancy code for «pizza», was the only normal sized thing.
Everything tasted ok. The salad was something I could have made at home, i.e. nothing special. The baked brie was a piece of brie that they put in the oven with a clove of garlic on top: again nothing special. The flatbread tasted like a pizza with barbeque sauce on it. Not so bad, but what was that hard stuff on top? In terms of the food, I have to go with «Meh. I’ve experienced better.», which Unilocal defines as two stars. Maybe their meaty options are better? I’m a vegetarian reviewer, so readers of this can take note of that bias in case their other stuff is amazing or something.
The service was slow, and it seemed like all of the employees were trying their best to look everywhere but the tables. One of the table settings lacked a fork, and it took about 10 minutes after we got our food to get someone’s attention to get one. Every time we were ready for the next step of the meal it felt like we had to wait at least 10 minutes. They weren’t especially busy either. As alluded to above, we had looked at a menu on their website, but when we got to the restaurant the menu was very different and didn’t have any of the items that we had planned to order. As someone I work with told me recently, «I don’t trust a business that doesn’t update their website».
Anyway, nice to have something in the neighborhood, but it doesn’t live up to the hype or the décor. Verdict: overpriced, underwhelming food with below average service, but not terrible.

The Purple Martin advertises itself as «a neighborhood restaurant serving local beer, delicious cocktails and wine, and simple fare located in Fox Park and owned by long-​time Fox Park residents» and boasting food that is «American (New) /​Comfortable and welcoming» Their website invites you to hear their bartender stories and come out for game night.
From that sort of description I expected something different from what was actually delivered. When I hear «neighborhood local beer, american comforting» I think of simple, casual, burgers, pub fare, lots of local beers, rustic, something dive-​y and nostalgic.
The Purple Martin was certainly casual but the atmosphere, combined with the menu items and drinks, all seemed a little confused and lacking in cohesion. I’m not sure what they are trying to be.
The mascot of the purple martin was lost on me. («Put a bird on it»)?
The interior is very new and trendy, colorful, eccentric. It seems like an intimate boutique café. Their menu is heavily mediterranean /​middle eastern — dolmades, tunisian stew, Shawarma, berbere lentils, duck provencal, olive plate, baked brie.
They had two Schlafly beers on tap and one of them was the coffee stout. I’m not sure why they would carry that since it would not go well with much of the menu. Coffee stout, in my opinion, would go well with much heavier, blander food than the bright, herbal and acidic mediterranean flavors. The menu just didn’t jive with their claim to being an American neighborhood place. It was too specific.
I ordered their signature purple martin cocktail, which was grape soda and rum. It was very very sweet, not very strong. I was not impressed that they made this their signature cocktail because it seemed like such a quirky and light-​hearted choice for a place that otherwise seemed to carry a grown-​up and healthy attitude on the menu.
I could see a place having this as their signature cocktail if they were going for a more playful tone overall. It matched with the game-​night and the colorful décor, but not the menu (and the prices.)
I ordered the fish stew. The flavors were fine but the portion was small and the fish was overcooked. It’s easy to overcook white fish and I was disappointed in that. I felt that the price was high for very simple ingredients that were not arranged or prepared in any new or surprising ways.
I appreciate that this is a locally run neighborhood place and I admire someone attempting a unique business, but a sense of deliberate execution goes a long way in enjoying a restaurant. Customers want to know what kind of place their going to, want to know that some thought went into choosing the atmosphere, the menu, the drinks — so that everything seems to compliment each other. Even ecclecticism can be a theme, but it has to seem intentional.
Simple, healthy, mediterranean food is great, but if you charge so much for simple ingredients you must make them special — tell me it’s all organic or local or surprise me with the freshness and execution. And drinks should compliment the food as well. And if you want a signature cocktail, I think it should be the BEST cocktail on the menu — not just a silly thing. Or if you would have your business delivering a silly atmosphere, extend that to the rest of the place with playful touches elsewhere on the menu.
This is my criticism, and my opinion.

Great new place in Tower Grove East off of Shenandoah.
I stopped in on a date night with a friend. We each had a Moscow Mule (they were delicious) and had some good conversation with the bartenders. We didn’t show up hungry so i haven’t been able to try any of their menu but i’ve heard good things from friends.
The ambience is awesome. the exposed brick gives the place character while the dim lighting helps the Purple Martin neon sign pop on the wall. There is plenty of patio seating for nicer weather. when we stopped in the patio was completely full. Inside is smaller and cozy although i didn’t get a chance to peek in the second room.
Cant wait to stop back in and try some of their eats. Coming from someone who used to live across the street on Shenandoah, The Purple Martin is exactly what this area needs.

While this location is not in a bustling restaurant neighborhood, it is worth the drive to discover another haven for great food. This unpretentious restaurant is all about fresh, innovative cooking. It has a very laid back vibe that provides a relaxing dining experience. The menu isn’t posted on their website, but I can assure you that there are choices.
I was just about to order their beet and orange salad when our waitress (Nika) mentioned some specials which included my eventual choice: beer, cheese and bratwurst soup. Wow… the blending was perfect (meaning the bratwurst didn’t rule the roost) and every spoonful was just an ongoing pleasure.
Next up was their chicken kabob with a side of Harissa. It was fresh, flavorful and filling. (Sorry, I like alliteration.)
I capped it off with a piece of chocolate cake which paired well with the botttle of tempranillo that I had ordered earlier when I saw that my Unilocal check-​in got me 20% off a bottle of wine. Nice!
The prices are incredibly reasonable which was the icing on the cake to make this a very enjoyable dinner.
Now on to service: As mentioned above our waitress was Nika. She also added to an enjoyable evening as she embodied the unpretentious, relaxed vibe that this place exudes. She knew the menu, made great recommendations and was attentive without being overbearing. What more can you ask.
If you don’t mind going (a little bit) off the beaten path, make plans to visit this restaurant soon.
Enjoy!

Interesting new place in Fox Park. Nice atmosphere, friendly service. We went on a Friday evening when the weather was gorgeous so their patio seating was filling in. We opted for inside as the temps were starting to dip. Nice décor of exposed brick walls, distressed wood bar with subtle décor. They let the beauty of the materials show.
We started with a Cabernet and a signature cocktail, the purple Martin (Fitz’s grape soda, Malibu rum and lemon juice). Super sweet, my bf said it reminded him of purple passion, lol! Ordered the melted Brie with roasted garlic and toasted crostini as our appetizer… Yum! Simple yet delicious.
On to the entrees, I went for the chicken avegolemono and he had the lamb shank. Of the two I preferred his lamb shank which was a good portion well seasoned with a variety of vegetables accompanying it. My dish had perfectly cooked rice and the sauce was fantastic with a lemony kick but the chicken breast was a bit dry. It had been pounded thin and grilled I think for a little too long. I ended up asking for a spoon to capture the rest of the rice and sauce which ended up eating more like a soup. I wish it had been served with some toasted pita to soak up the sauce. In the end we decided my bf’s dish was spot on but mine needed a little tweaking to be perfect.
For dessert we had the Strawberry Napoleon, puff pastry and custard with strawberries and a strawberry reduction. My bf had said he’d only have room for a bite but after we started neither of us wanted to stop! The flavors were light and fresh, it was like a fresh twist on strawberry shortcake.
We will be back to sample more of their menu!

Well I guess I really have nothing to complain abut when it comes to this place, which is a shock since its new! I really am blown away by the food here. I had the Donor Kebab and it was really, really good. It also comes with a side of Harissa, and I thought, why would I need this for this dish, but once I tried it, I was hooked.
They offer two flatbreads which is really more like a little pizza. We got the Fresh Mozzarella and roasted garlic one. No doubts that Mozzarella was fresh and the garlic was cooked perfect, a very nice starter.
My husband got the Lablabi. Lablabi is a Tunisian peasant stew full of garbanzo beans in a garlic and cumin vegetable broth served over crusty bread and topped with a poached egg, cilantro, parsley and olive oil. Served with sides of pickled onions, capers, olives, preserved lemons and harissa pepper sauce. You can add tuna for two bucks extra, which we did not do, and we should have, because while it was out of this world without the tuna, the addition of the tuna would set this over the edge. I imagine it would be like a version of a tuna nicoise salad. This is truly an exciting dish, served at a new exciting place.
This place also has a full bar and a cocktail list that rivals lots of the top notch places around.