Support for Food Is Love is provided by Wild Alaska Salmon and Seafood.

100% Fisherman family owned, independent seafood sourcing, catching, processing and delivering seafood directly to the consumer's front door.

From Caught to bought Wild Salmon direct from the fisherman Information at WildAlaskaSalmonandSeafood.com Here's to the local restaurants, to the chef's owner operator, the staff.

The ones who love being in the weeds night after night.

When we go to work each morning, that's who we have in mind, from where we source our food to how we deliver it.

Here's to them, the ones who are out there cooking for us every day.

Restaurants are the heart of everything we do.

We are Performance Food Service.

Proudly supporting Food is Love.

St. Louis isn't known as a music hub, at least not in a sense that Nashville and LA are.

But still, through the decades, the scene here as incubated and launched an impressive amount of talent into the limelight.

Eventually, when good food and good music is in the same mixing bowl, their paths are going to cross.

But what happens when creative juices of the musical world crosses into the kitchens of your local restaurant?

I don't know for sure, but I always wanted to find out.

As a chef I need to stay curious in order to evolve.

For me, that means looking beyond a good meal to learn more about who made it to see what inspires them to cook.

"La comida es amor" Every great city has great food.

I'm going on a journey around the world right here in St Louis I'm going a quest to find passionate chefs who cooks from the heart "Its exciting!"

"I think it's the best" to prove that food is love Its going to be delicious.

Food is love.

Love your food.

To live the life of a chef, one must have stamina.

Early mornings and late nights, daily logistical challenges, labor shortages and just general uncertainties are par for the course in the restaurant business, having the energy to get up and do it again each morning is certainly not for the weak.

Throughout the 90s, and Alt rock, punk Reggea band, known as the Urge, rose to stardom in St Louis.

The unique combination of brass instrument line, metal and punk influences, made The Urge an anomaly in the music industry at the time, and that earned them fans across multiple genres.

But ask any Urge fan and they'll tell you that it's the high energy a band brings to the stage that makes the show so good.

Today, I'm on my way to have lunch with Steve Ewing, lead singer of The Urge and owner of Steve's Hotdogs, where his stamina and creativity from the stage has crossed over to some delicious dogs.

The Urges is a mix of a bunch of different styles, so especially like in the 90s, where the Ska music scene was really kind of jumping up.

People called us a ska band because we had horns and we were totally into Ska music, but we're a mix of a ton of stuff, Ska, reggea, punk, rock and big influence on us.

Metal.

Imagine if you took all those genres and put them together.

That was The Urge, so it was quite unique.

So it's like a stew of a lot of different ingredients.

Yeah.

A big music star to a hot dog place.

How did that all happen?

I wanted to get in the food game at some point in my life, but we were touring a lot as The Urge.

We toured for years and years and years.

One of my favorite things to do is to eat street food while we're out on the road was very interested in it.

So I got off the road for a little while.

I move back to St Louis.

I thought a good way to get into the food industry would be like, let me just start a hot dog cart.

Let me just see how I do, learn a little bit.

And it was almost like a second job, because I was also playing a lot at that point.

I was playing here locally, probably a couple of hundred shows a year.

So I got in the game with hot dogs, started doing lunch, and figured I really liked this.

I could do this during the day and I can still do music at nighttime.

So what started off as a hot dog cart then turned into a brick and mortar.

So we got our place, our first place over in a neighborhood called the Hill eleven years ago.

Okay.

And then from there,.. How come you chose the hot dog?

Do you have a love of hot dogs?

I love 'em.

It was one of my go tos.

While we were out, I tried to stay healthy.

While we were on the road.

By eating hot dogs?

No.

I could never passed up a hot dog, though, at night or a guy with a cart at night after a show.

If we were in Chicago or New Orleans or any of those towns anywhere that's popular, I could never pass it up.

And, of course, you get a line of people get that late night food.

So I was like, Man, I can do that.

I can totally do that.

I think it's cool how eating in different cities on the road, turned the light on in Steve's about the food scene back home.

Have you ever been to the Denmark?

I have been to Denmark.

We have these little street carts with hot dogs.

I don't remember.

Red hot dogs.

Yeah.

I mean, it's funny.

I just remember talking to you right now.

It's like a night snack.

And so all the chefs, when we're done with the shift in the restaurants, we go out.

And meet at the hot dog stand, we are creating these incredible meals during the night.

And then what we crave after work is a beer and a hot dog.

If you had to recommend any of your hot dogs.

Which one is the number one seller here?

The number one seller is probably the Gorilla.

The Mac and cheese hot dog.

What is probably the number two seller is a Bacon Bacon Jamaican, which is my favorite.

First one were going to make is a gorilla Mac and cheese.

This is probably one of the big sellers in the house here.

Okay.

Starts with our bun, our buns are made from a small bakery in town called Vitales, which is on the Hill.

So that's an important part of it.

the hot dog is the bread?

The hugest part.

Any sandwich really is about the bread.

In my opinion, of course.

And then we make our Mac and cheese fresh all day long and Mac and cheese on that.

And now we get a little bit of bacon on like that.

We got a little bit of fried onion...That is our gorilla Mac and cheese dog.

Oh, wow.

All right, here.

I'll give you half.

You give me half.

Awesome.

So what do you drink with a hot dog?

Cold soda Cold soda?

Yeah.

That's what you have to?

Yeah.

Okay.

What something to drink?

Cold soda, I guess.

What kind?

How about a diet?

I guess I need a cold soda then(laughing) I'm trying to do everything the right way.

Right.

That's part of the experience.

Alright.

The Bacon Bacon Jamaican.

It doesn't matter how old you are, There's just something about a hot dog.

We use New York, Nathans.

We do a low temperature smoke and then we grill on open flame.

So you get the smoke flavor.

But you also get that kind of outdoor backyard flame flavor.

Yeah, the dog is really good just by itself But like I said, the buns from Vitales, so it's got a good bite to it, doesn't get all.

soggy when you put a bunch of toppings in it, so it holds up really nicely, because normally a hot dog bun is really soft bread.

Soft.

Yeah.

Yeah, I love it.

This one's got a little bite to it.

The gorilla Mac and cheese.

People think these simple things are simple.

They are, but they're not.

The pasta has to be cooked the right way.

There's a lot of things that goes into it to make it perfect.

You're exactly right.

That one there.

That's my favorite.

You can't talk when you're eating the hot dog.

Oh, you can't!

Until now, I hadn't considered it.

But after seeing how Steve is using the hot dog as a base to carry so many interesting flavors, I'm sort of kicking myself for ignoring it for so long.

The bacon, bacon Jamaican or the gorilla Mac and cheese dog both had me scheming on a plan to come back for lunch tomorrow.

So now, as I've gotten to know you a little bit, we're gonna try to come to one of your shows.

So what's the chances we're gonna sing together on that?

Or you don't invite fat chefs up on the scene?

No, you don't have to make any commitment.

That was a joke.

You gotta just grab the mic.

Yeah, I'm too shy.

It was delicious.

Thank you.

I'm leaving.

Steve's inspired with a new respect for the hot dog niche of the food scene here in St. Louis.

Even better, I'm leaving with a new friend.

I gotta find this picture of the Danish hot dog because you're gonna have to have a Danish hot dog Im going to have to do a Danish dog.

Yeah.

Or we can call it the Viking.

But for now, I'm on my way to meet another St Louis chef.

This one isn't a singer or musician at all, but his experience in the kitchen found him cooking for some of the biggest names in rock and roll.

Looking a little bit into your background.

I know you.

You probably have some good stories.

You've seen a couple of things a lot of years on the road.

Meet Chef Jimmy Voss.

Jimmy is the Chef here at West End Grill and Pub .

Or WEGAP, as it's known by locals, WEGAP is like a lot of the pubs that riddle the corners of the city.

They have a trivia night and a faithful set of regulars that come in like clockwork.

And they have a menu of favorites that generations of customers keep coming in for.

But probably the most unique thing they have is the former tour chef for the Grateful Dead.

How did you even get started in the restaurant business?

I think of it all as an accident.

A friend of mine, I went to Mercy High School with Chris Burn, and we were just hanging out.

He said, Jimmy you should come work at Duffs.

I went, Duffs.

What's that?

I had no idea what it was or who it was.

And we walk in the back door.

And he had done the work for me and for Karen Duffy.

He had got me on Saturday night washing dishes and talked to the guy into taking it off.

And he was happy to take off Saturday night.

So I was washing dishes on a Saturday night, like the third or fourth time I come up from the basement.

The disher was in the basement.

The owner, Karen Duffy, runs into me at the soda station.

And he goes, who are you?

And I'm like, I'm your dishwasher.

She said, Well, I didn't know anything about this, so they secretly got me in to be the dishwasher on Saturday night without telling the boss or the owner what was going on.

Anyway, within a year, I'm standing on the front line doing Friday, Saturday and Sunday night dinner.

It was really a special time for Duffs.

But the West End, it was happening in the whole West End was a magic time in a magic place.

You a music guy, too?

I mean, you're interested in music?

I grew up loving music.

My dad was a drummer and had access to a lot of early jazz.

Growing up in the first ten years, I worked at Duffs Restaurant.

Karen Duffy knew what my vacation was going to be and where I was going.

Because I'm like, Karen, Grateful Dead..I'm going whether it be Chicago or Atlanta or Cincinnati or wherever I could get tickets for, I would follow them and leave St. Louis and go That was before you met them and they took yo?

You were already a dead head?

Yes.

Or is that the right term for that?

A big, big dead head.

Okay, big dead head.

You sacrifice everything to go to all these concerts, basically?

New Year's Eve in San Francisco, the Uptown Theater in Chicago, a little mini beat up version of the Fox.

Some of the best shows I've ever seen in my life.

Good stuff.

Great stuff.

I'd seen over 100 shows before Mr. John McIntyre, who managed the Grateful Dead in the early 60s.

He had grown up in Belleville, Illinois.

So he was St. Louis family.

And through a mutual friend, I got to meet John McIntyre.

And he came into Duffs and I met him and he liked my food, and I started cooking for him.

He'd pop his head in the kitchen.

Go, "Jimmy, what's special tonight?"

I'd tell him, and I always make sure if I knew he was coming, I put a little extra touch on whatever it was for Mr. John McIntire.

Then you could fast forward to Summer '86.

I'm cooking at Duffs and I get a phone call.

Hi, it's John.

What are you doing?

I'm like, I'm cooking.

What are you doing?

Well, we're up here in Alpine Valley, outside of Milwaukee.

And like, I knew what Alpine Valley was, he says, and he goes, Well, our chef just quit.

He flew home and the management team was going to call New York to figure out to get somebody out on the road right away.

But he said, I'm going to call St. Louis.

St. Louis?

Who's in St Louis?

Jimmy's, in St. Louis So he said, Can you come out and Cook for the Grateful Dead?

And I said, no, you're kidding?

I said sure, sure!

John, yeah!

He had already done his homework and called Karen Duffy to ask for permission.

And the next day I was in Ohio at the Rubber Bowl.

We had Bob Dylan and Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers and the Grateful Dead and little old football Stadium there.

Jimmy stories can probably fill a book.

For a Chef that has been a devoted Grateful Dead fan his entire life.

Getting the call to come cook for the band on the road is like hitting the lottery.

I mean, really, what are the odds?

And they take me show me what they had and what was going on and what the people had left and said, what are you going to do?

So I looked at immediately, gave him a menu with what I was going to do.

And I said, okay.

And they left and I was there cooking.

And then I turn around.

And here's Micky Heart.

Can you make me a roast beef sandwich?

I was like sure, you know.

And one by one, everybody came through and wanted something, but they really wanted to just meet the new guy.

And fortunately, after already having a hundred or so shows under my belt, I had grown up and like I knew what I was doing.

And where I was, I said, Jimmy, this is your chance.

You better make it.

They kept asking me back after that.

At one point one of them pulled me aside and said, you know, we're on the road all the time.

What we really miss here is mom's home cooking.

Because I thought I wanted to get fancy and impress.

And they said, we want Mom's home cooking.

So in a sense, I became Grandma Jimmy from that point.

And then I realized, I stopped trying so hard.

You do prime rib with mashed potatoes.

It's it's hard to beat.

Yeah, they didn't.

Comfort food,.

Comfort food.

Remind them that there Grandmas here.

The Rubber bowl was the start of it all.

I go to.. Tom Petty and Mr. Dylan.

That's not a bad way to start.

Oh, no.

I mean, I turn around there.

I've got a dining room.

and they're all in the dining room eating lunch, and I passed the test.

It started raining on load out.

And I had one of the managers from New York.

He said, if you were to do this, what would you do?

And I remember two things.

I told them.

We've got everything in these little boxes everywhere, and you look on the stage, and they've got everything in all these beautiful road cases.

I said I would build myself a road case to put all my stuff in so I could wheel it in and have it.

My first show back as tour chef for Grateful Dead, Phil comes into the kitchen and he rolls this massive box in.

And says here you go, Jimmy.

We built it for you.

And it's this road case its like this, and you can open up the cabinet and it's got every little pot and pan and tool and drawers with everything you need.

And this row is all spices and more canned goods.

And I'm like,..

I don't know what to say.

And we call it Bertha.

Anybody who's familiar with the song, you kind of know what I'm talking about.

It's big.

In the kitchen, the dishes is as colorful as the members of the Grateful Dead themselves.

I cook with color.

I'm going to make for you the Tangerine teriyaki salmon with the stir fried wild rice.

Well, I mean, I'm not a dead head, but I'm a parrot head.

I think I've done a couple of his shows a couple of times, but I can't remember...

So I got the basic foundation of the wild rice.

And you can put just about anything you want in stir fryry.

There's a lot of different things in this dish.

This my tangerine teriyaki.

You can see how quick it happens.

A little broccolini for garnish.

When you were on the road how many people were helping you in the kitchen?

One, two or three, depending on the size or the magnitude of the show.

A little bit more sesame seed.

And there you have it.

If you got the phone call, if they called you and said, hey, we're doing a reunion for the Grateful Dead.

Would you have it in you to say no to that, or would you go?....

I wouldn't have to think about it..Grateful Dead is my second family.

Sorry, William.

Jimmy may not be on the road with the Dead, but he's never far from a show because there is yet another element that attracts people to WEGAP.

West End Grill and Pub is connected to this.

The Gaslight Theater, which hosts shows in conjunction with dinners at WEGAP, come for dinner, stay for the show.

This is William Roth, actor and owner of WEGAP, as well as the adjoining Gaslight Theater.

And I've been an actor most of my adult life.

And so I was like, well, maybe I could turn this into a theater.

And I've also been an actor long enough to know that people go to dinner and they say they're going to come to your show.

But they're all the way across town and they're on their third Martini and they look at their watch and it's ten till eight..

They're like, We'll see Williams show next weekend.

So this culture, cuisine, cocktail idea came up.

So I built the theater, talked to my friend Neil Costello and some other high school buddies to start the restaurant and the rest is history 15 years later.

The Gaslight is a throwback to an era gone by when a part of the West End called the Gaslight Square was known the world around and attracted the who's who of the entertainment and arts world.

It pays homage to it.

But it's funny from Boyle and Olive, which is just one stop up about a block and a half east from 1950 to 70.

It was happened, man.

I mean, it was like a little Grennwich Village strip.

And everybody from all over the world would come.

And the Smothers Brothers and Barbara Streisand and Noel Howard.

And, I mean, just amazing who you could find performing.

Woody Allen would do comedy set.

And then he'd go to the black clubs on the other side of Delmar would stay open until three.

He'd go over there and play clarinet until three in the morning.

I mean, there was just an amazing and true St Louis history.

I mean,it all was like, ten years is all it lasted.

It just flamed out.

To hear William talk about it.

Gaslight Square must have been something.

The stories were strong enough to inspire him to do all the work he's done here.

That's cool there is a theater attached to the restaurant, ..and there's always actors and writers and play rights from all over the country that are coming and going from our St Louis Actors Studio that performs in here.

There was nothing in here since the 50s, so the roof was gone.

If it wasn't stone or brick, it was in the basement.

And so we had full reigns to do what we wanted.

And so we turn this into a proscenium storefront theater with 99 seats up and down in a tech room in the back.

So you're an actor, too?

I am a state actor.

I always wanted to do Hamlet.

You are familiar with it?

Yeah.

My rendition of Hamlet.

Is this the Time or this is not a good no?

It's good as long as it's under 4 hours.

Food, culture, entertainment, theater.

All of that stuff is right here, and it all feeds each other.

This culture, cuisine, cocktail, like I said, is really works because especially on show nights when you've got a bunch of people eating, and then they all come in here.

And then the next round of people are eating while the shows in and that act break, people are coming out and they're like, what's going on in there.

And then the actors hang out afterwards, and you've got these interesting writers and artists from all over that are kind of hanging around and eating and talking.

It's a great place.

Food and culture.

Yeah.

I mean, it's a great combination.

The idea always for our restaurant over there was this progressive pub food where it was like, you're going to be able to eat there every night if you want.

That's how the structure is price wise.

William has found a way to merge the entertainment component to the food at WEGAP And I'm serious about Hamlet too... Are you?

No big surprise, but my Hamlet debut is going to have to wait.

Maybe I can start over at the Blue Strawberry at the open mic night on Sunday.

Definitely Hone your skills.

As I sit here at Blue Strawberry.

,and the toasted ravioli are pretty good here by the way, I can't help think that it's all connected.

Food and music.

I mean, I would be lying if I said that hearing Jimmies stories and meeting a rock star like steve didnt conjure up fantasies in my mind of what could have been.

Well, maybe I'll get to sing with the.

Urge one day you never know I have the urge.

Now you might have to come and grab the mic.

Maybe it's never too late to follow a dream.

Maybe Steve and I can start our own band.

Do you want to go on a raid with me?

I'll jump right on in, man!

Let's go.

But really, who am I kidding?

And judging by Williams response to my Hamlet idea, I should probably just stick to the kitchen.

There's an interesting parallel in these particular stories.

Jimmy's diligence in the restaurant business eventually led him straight to the music he was so passionate about.

While Steve's passion for music eventually led him to start the restaurant business, he always dreamt of.

Food plays a central role in both stories.

Just like thousands of other stories that makes up the St Louis food scene.

You're helping other people that can't get any food to get food.

We have a charity program called Feed the People, which started as just a hashtag.

Just let people know that we were already feeding like, like some homeless folks and some kids who didn't have meals from school.

So we were kind of subsidizing kids meals and helping to feed the homeless.

When the pandemic hit, we realized that it was extremely important at that point to really feed the kids because school was out and a lot of kids depend on school to provide at least a couple of meals for them throughout the day.

The idea was to get our food out to people on the street.

Food is love and hot dogs is definitely love.

Its all love.

The rhythm of the kitchen is music all of its own.

Maybe that's why food and music is such a natural fit.

All right, Steve, you're going to get a run for your money.

The big Dane it's called, its Havarti cheese, jalapeño, bacon and brisket hot dogs wild the Alaskan salmon, Jimmy, did a lot of stuff with fun flavors.

I wish I had some Scarlet begonias.

I think Some Urge lyrics says it nicely, with a slight tweak, four letters and two words words, Words that mean the same.

One is love and one is food.

Food is love.

Support for food is love is provided by Wild Alaska Salmon and Seafood 100% Fisherman family owned independent, seafood sourcing, catching, processing and delivering seafood directly to the consumer's front door.

From caught to bought Wild Salmon direct from the fisherman Information at WildAlaskaSalmonandSeafood.com Here's to the local restaurants, to the chef's, owner operators, the staff, the ones who love being in the weeds night after night.

When we go to work each morning, that's who we have in mind.

From where we source our food to how we deliver it.

Here's to them, the ones who are out there cooking for us everyday Restaurants are the heart of everything we do.

We are Performance Food Service.

Proudly supporting Food is Love.