Bogart's Smokehouse, St. Louis: The Best Ribs in a City That Takes Ribs Seriously

Hi, I'm Ino.

If you're going to eat barbecue in St. Louis — and you should — you need to have a plan. This is a city that takes its smoked meat seriously, with a handful of restaurants that have been debated and ranked by locals for years. I narrowed my list to three. Bogart's Smokehouse in the Soulard neighborhood was the first stop, chosen partly for its location and partly because every person I asked pointed to it first.

It turned out to be the best barbecue I ate in St. Louis. Possibly the best ribs I've eaten anywhere.

The apricot-glazed ribs at Bogart's — torch-caramelized, lacquered, and better than they look.

Soulard: The Neighborhood Around the Restaurant

Bogart's Smokehouse is located at 1627 S. 9th Street in the Soulard neighborhood, a few miles south of downtown St. Louis. Soulard is one of the oldest continuously occupied neighborhoods in the city — its brick rowhouses and narrow streets have a character that the newer parts of St. Louis don't. It also happens to be home to one of the oldest public markets in the United States.

The Soulard Farmers Market has been operating since 1779, making it one of the oldest markets in America. It occupies a full city block directly across the street from Bogart's, and on market days the entire area fills up with vendors, shoppers, and cars looking for parking. This is the first thing to know about visiting Bogart's: parking is genuinely difficult, and on busy market days it can require real patience. Street parking on the surrounding blocks is the practical option. The ParkLouie app lists nearby paid lots if you'd prefer a guaranteed space.

Walking toward the restaurant from wherever you've managed to leave the car, the neighborhood announces Bogart's before you see it. The smoke from the outdoor pits drifts down the block in the morning. You follow it.

The Soulard neighborhood on a grey morning — the Soulard Farmers Market is just across the street to the right.

The Origin: A Smokehouse Built by a Pit Master

Bogart's Smokehouse opened in February 2011. It was founded by Skip Steele, who had previously been the pit master at Pappy's Smokehouse — the other restaurant that consistently appears at the top of St. Louis barbecue conversations. The two places share a lineage: same techniques, same commitment to quality, different personalities.

The relationship between Bogart's and Pappy's is an unusual one in the restaurant world. Rather than the rivalry that typically develops when a key employee leaves to start a competing business, the two operations have maintained a genuinely friendly connection. Regulars report seeing the owners eating at each other's restaurants. The general consensus among St. Louis barbecue fans is that Bogart's and Pappy's occupy the top two spots in the city — and that reasonable people can disagree about which is better.

Bogart's has accumulated considerable recognition since opening: TripAdvisor, Yelp, and Zagat awards, and selection as one of the Best Restaurants in St. Louis in both 2021 and 2022. It is small — roughly forty seats indoors plus outdoor picnic tables — and it runs on a first-come, first-served basis with no reservations. The kitchen smokes meat until it runs out, which typically happens before the official 4 PM closing time. Come early.

Good to know: Bogart's is open Tuesday through Saturday from 10:30 AM to 4 PM, or until they sell out — whichever comes first. They are closed Sunday and Monday. Arriving at or before opening time is strongly recommended, particularly on weekends when the Soulard Farmers Market is running and the neighborhood is at its busiest.

The sandwich board on the sidewalk — the pig logo is the first thing you see, the smoke is the second.

The front window — a frosted pig silhouette and the word Soulard below.

Inside: Small, Honest, and Covered in Framed Things

The interior is compact — about a dozen tables, warm red walls, and decades of accumulated memorabilia covering every available surface. Awards, newspaper clippings, photographs, children's drawings, certificates, dollar bills pinned to a board. The kind of walls that accumulate naturally in a restaurant that has been loved by the same neighborhood for over a decade.

You order at the counter near the door when you walk in, choose your meat and sides, pay, find a seat, and wait for your number to be called. There are also outdoor picnic tables along the side of the building if the weather allows. The whole operation is efficient and unhurried — no table service, no menus handed to you, just a list on the wall and a counter where someone will help you figure out what to get.

Red walls, framed certificates, a painted pig — the kind of interior that accumulates when a place has been genuinely loved for years.

The Korean Scroll on the Wall

While waiting for the food, I scanned the walls — which is easy to do in a room this small and this thoroughly covered. Between a framed black-and-white photograph of the old Busch Stadium and a stack of newspaper clippings, there was a traditional Korean scroll painting. Yellow chrysanthemums on aged paper, and written in bold Korean characters alongside them: 보가트스. Bogart's, in Korean.

The connection clicked immediately. St. Louis is the city where the Cardinals play, and the Cardinals are the team where Korean pitcher Oh Seung-hwan and later Kim Kwang-hyun wore a major league uniform. For Korean baseball fans, St. Louis carries a specific kind of familiarity — it's the American city most associated with Korean players reaching the highest level of the sport. Finding a Korean scroll in a local St. Louis barbecue restaurant felt less like coincidence and more like a small piece of the same story.

Good to know: The scroll was apparently a gift from a Korean visitor or fan — the kind of thing that ends up on the wall of a well-loved local restaurant and stays there. It's easy to miss if you don't look up.

A Korean scroll reading "보가트스" — Bogart's in hangul — hanging beside a photograph of the old Busch Stadium.

The Apricot-Glazed Ribs

Bogart's signature is the apricot-glazed ribs — and the technique behind them is what separates them from most of what you'll find at other barbecue restaurants.

The ribs are first slow-smoked over apple and cherry wood, which produces a lightly sweet smoke flavor without the heaviness that some wood combinations create. After smoking, an apricot and apple glaze is applied to the surface. The final step is the one that makes the difference: the glazed ribs are finished with a propane torch, caramelizing the sugar in the glaze and creating a lacquered, slightly charred surface that is completely unlike a conventional sauce-coated rib.

The result, when you bite into it, is layered. The char on the outside provides a faint bitterness that keeps the sweetness from being cloying. Beneath that is the glaze — concentrated, fruity, sticky. And beneath that is the meat itself, which has absorbed hours of smoke and needs virtually no help from anything else on the table. The bone releases cleanly. There is no tearing, no working at it. The meat just separates.

I had eaten excellent ribs before this — in Memphis, in Kansas City, at various well-regarded spots along the way. These were better. I say that with the understanding that barbecue is subjective and regional and that anyone who claims to have found the definitive version is probably oversimplifying things. But these were better.

A half slab with two sides — the glaze is applied after smoking and finished with a torch.

The Pulled Pork

Pulled pork is a menu item I've ordered cautiously over the years. Done poorly, it's dry and stringy — the kind of thing that needs sauce to be edible. Done well, it's something else entirely.

Bogart's pulled pork falls firmly in the second category. The meat had absorbed enough smoke to be flavorful on its own, and the texture was genuinely moist without being fatty or greasy. It was served over a soft bun with a cup of what appeared to be house-made pickles on the side — the acidity of which cut through the richness in the right way.

If you order only the ribs, you'll leave happy. If you order the ribs and the pulled pork, you'll leave understanding why people come back every time they pass through St. Louis.

The pulled pork sandwich — soft bun, house pickles on the side, and more meat than the bun can reasonably contain.

The Order That Matters: Eat the Dry Meat First

Bogart's also serves ribs without the apricot glaze — a dry preparation that lets the smoke and the rub speak without additional sweetness. In principle, this is the version you should taste first: the unadorned meat, before anything sweet or caramelized has primed your palate.

I did not do this. I ate the glazed ribs first, and the experience of the dry ribs afterward was genuinely diminished — not because they were bad, but because the glazed version had recalibrated my expectations in a way that made everything else seem understated. It was the barbecue equivalent of eating dessert before dinner and then finding the main course underwhelming.

The dry ribs, eaten on their own terms with the house sauces, would have been excellent. Eaten after the glazed version, they needed the sauces to land.

Tip: If you're ordering both the glazed and unglazed ribs — which is worth doing — eat the dry version first. The apricot glaze is intense enough to affect how you taste everything that follows. Start with the most subtle and work toward the most complex.

The glazed ribs — this is what the torch does to apricot and apple glaze after hours of apple wood smoke.

The Four House Sauces

Each table comes set with four squeeze bottles of house-made sauce, stored in a repurposed Fitz's root beer carrier — itself a St. Louis institution, the local craft soda brand that's been made in the city since 1947. The sauces include Voodoo Sauce, Sweet Maegan Ann, and two others that vary in heat and profile.

The sauces are genuinely good and worth working through systematically. Each one changes the character of the meat it touches — the Voodoo Sauce adds a savory depth that works particularly well with the dry ribs, while the sweeter versions complement the pulled pork. The problem I encountered was arriving at the sauces after the glazed ribs had already set a high bar. By the time I found the combination I liked best, there wasn't much left to put it on.

The sides — potato salad and baked beans — are serviceable. The potato salad is a well-made deviled-egg style, chunky and mustardy. The beans have a good molasses depth. Neither is the reason to come here, and neither is likely to be the thing you remember afterward. The meat is the reason to come here. If I were ordering again, I would skip a side and add more meat instead.

Four house sauces in a Fitz's root beer carrier — Voodoo Sauce, Sweet Maegan Ann, and two others. Each one changes the meat differently.

Ino's Tips for Visiting Bogart's Smokehouse

Arrive before opening or as close to it as possible. Bogart's opens at 10:30 AM Tuesday through Saturday and closes when the meat runs out — which regularly happens before the official 4 PM closing time. The earlier you arrive, the better your selection and the shorter your wait. On days when the Soulard Farmers Market is operating, the entire neighborhood is busier and parking becomes harder. Aim for 10:15 AM at the latest on market days.

Parking strategy. There is no dedicated parking lot for Bogart's. Street parking on the surrounding blocks is the most practical option. The ParkLouie app lists nearby paid parking if you want a guaranteed space. Building in extra time for the parking search — especially on weekends — will save you stress on the way in.

Eat the dry ribs before the glazed ones. If you're ordering both styles, start with the unglazed version. The apricot glaze is intensely sweet and caramelized, and eating it first will make everything that follows taste underwhelming by comparison. The correct order is: dry ribs first, then glazed ribs. This is not a small distinction.

Focus on the meat, not the sides. The sides are good but not exceptional. The potato salad is the best of them. If you find yourself choosing between a second side and an extra portion of meat, take the meat. The ribs and pulled pork are the reason Bogart's has the reputation it does — the sides are just company.

Try all four sauces on the dry ribs. The house sauces are genuinely worth your attention, but they work best on the unglazed meat where they can actually change the flavor profile rather than compete with the glaze. Work through them systematically before you commit to one. The Voodoo Sauce in particular rewards attention.

Bogart's is a short drive from Gateway Arch National Park, making it a natural lunch stop before or after the tram ride. For comparison, if you've already eaten well at Texas Roadhouse earlier in the trip, Bogart's will show you what the difference between national chain barbecue and a serious local smokehouse actually tastes like.

The Best Stop on the Road

I visited two more barbecue restaurants in St. Louis after Bogart's. Both were good. Neither changed my conclusion. Bogart's was the best of the three, and by a meaningful margin.

What it offers is not complicated: smoked meat, made well, in a small room in an old neighborhood, by people who clearly know what they're doing. There are no tricks, no elaborate presentations, no story being sold. Just ribs that fall off the bone, pulled pork that doesn't need sauce, and four squeeze bottles on every table for when you want it anyway.

If you're driving through St. Louis — and the Midwest road trip eventually brings everyone through St. Louis — this is the meal worth planning your schedule around.

The dry ribs — smoke ring visible along the edge, no glaze, nothing added. Eat these first.