CWEnder Mike Nichols, above, launched TourCWE in April, the latest venture in a life he describes as “having taken a lot of turns. I’ve been everything from a submarine cook to a venture capital ‘fixer.’ And I’ve always been a bit of a storyteller—my great-great-grandfather was a newspaper guy who worked for the St. Louis Star Times. Most of his progeny could spin a yarn, so I guess I’m no different. I think TourCWE is what I’m supposed to be doing, and a lot of my historical research overlaps with some writing I’ve been doing too. So the storytelling during the tours, and the writing feel almost like extensions of each other.”
More about why Nichols started the tour business in the neighborhood follows:
What prompted you to launch TourCWE?
It was a combination of things, really. Trina (my partner of 28 years) and I have been lucky to travel a bit, and have come to really appreciate a place at a much deeper level by getting shown around by a local who can curate not just the sights and sounds but the flavors and smells as well. It’s those multi-sensory experiences that stay with you – I still feel connected to those places, and can transport back there just by thinking about that “OMG that’s good!” moment. I wanted folks to take that joy home with them courtesy of St. Louis and the CWE.
I’m also a compulsive historian, and over the dozen years I’ve lived here my curiosity has cost me hundreds of hours down one rabbit hole after another. And of course I’m always itching to share afterwards, so over time it becomes kind of a regular thing for me to be walking with someone and start telling them a story about some building or block we’re passing. I may have actually driven my kids a little nuts with it. But when the idea of CWE tours came up, it wasn’t a stretch – I’d been kind of tricking my kids and friends into taking mini-tours with me for a while at that point.
Why focus on the Central West End?
First of all, it’s just a world-class walking neighborhood. Great food, check. Relaxed shopping, check. Tree-lined walkable streets, check.
But I do think the CWE is a really great backdrop for telling the story of the city too. During the Gilded Age, the CWE was the wealthiest enclave of America’s fourth largest city – there’s no better place to really see a preserved history, out in the wild, of St. Louis at its wealth-flexing apex. The founding families of St. Louis all wound up here by the end of the 19th century, and it becomes the place all manner of people aspire to—not just business people and doctors, but gangsters and crooked cops and fraudsters too.
It’s those really auspicious beginnings that give it this unreal kind of dichotomy because of the lives it’s lived since – mansions turned brothels and back again, a civil rights leader gunned down a hundred yards from where fancy dancing is being taught to upper-crust children, the no-tell-hotel that once hosted Asian royalty. So many stories you couldn’t make up.
Describe the types of tours offered by TourCWE
I’m currently offering 3-hour food tours along a leisurely, flat 2-mile walk packed with history. Tours leave from the Euclid/Washington corner at 1 p.m. Wednesday through Sunday.
- For STL visitors, we’ve got a specially curated “Iconic STL Flavors” menu that features a whole lot of stuff they’ll only find in St. Louis. They start at $99 per person with discounts for larger groups.
- Our “OMG in the CWE” tour follows the same route and history, but features a curated selection of nibbles from around the CWE and the Grove. These start at $99 per person, also discounted for larger groups.
- Soon, we’ll be offering each of these menus as a picnic – delivered in a basket with all the picnic accoutrements for a just-show-up culinary experience at various locations/times surrounded by the majesty of Forest Park.
For those with a real vested interest in a deeper dive into CWE-specific history, I also have a 3-mile “Stories of the CWE” walking tour (sans food) available on Wednesday and Sunday mornings at 9 a.m. leaving from the same place (Euclid/Washington). Booking at least 24 hours in advance is recommended but we keep some tours open until 4 hours before departure.
What do you hope people take away from the experience?
I really want people to leave appreciating the modern CWE for its ambience, timelessness, livability and affordability. I want them to feel comfortable wandering its streets and enjoying local businesses whenever future opportunities arise. It’s a great place to live and breathe. We’ve raised kids here and would do so again.
But without being a downer, I also want people to leave feeling like they better understand where St. Louis zigged when it should have zagged. Like many cities, a lot of the glue that held the various communities together was torn apart in slow motion by the combined forces of greed and racism over the course of decades, and the aftermath of that continues to hobble the entire region. I don’t think someone can tell an honest history of St. Louis that doesn’t include some measure of how it became this racially charged place an entire global generation knows as the city nearest Ferguson, if they know of us at all. I don’t want to shrink from that. Mill Creek Valley mattered. The Delmar Divide is real. Our collective memory right now is tragically short and I think these stories contain hard-won lessons that we can’t afford to forget, not just as communities and governments, but as human beings.
But we also have much to be proud of, and I use this tour also to celebrate those beautiful souls that turned out in the wake of horrible events like the May 16th tornado. For me, it has been really special and I think a testament to how much better St. Louisans have become at understanding the importance of community and mutual aid in sustaining a healthy city. I’m proud of who we are now, and I try hard to make that come through in the tours too.
Nichols reported that the response from those who have participated in TourCWE has been fantastic. “I’ve gotten lots of 5 star reviews on Google, and TourCWE was awarded a Badge of Excellence Award on Viator, the dominant tour booking site in the U.S.
For more information, visit TourCWE.