This article first appeared in the St. Louis Beacon, March 7, 2013 - There are those rare moments in life in which you’re allowed access into a club. This can come from a simple act of kindness, but with an impact that lasts for years.
During the good old days of South Grand’s recent past, circa the 1980s and ‘90s, there were occasional attempts to throw funky street festivals. During one of these, a wacky show was taking place on what’s now the dedicated parking lot of Jay International Foods. A wrestling ring was set up and grapplers from the South Broadway Athletic Club took turns doing bouts in broad daylight, with an intermission that featured a Miss Turnbuckle Contest.
As a young writer with the Riverfront Times, mostly covering the oddball beat, I was given a ringside seat and a vote. Only a few memories from that afternoon are still solid, like sitting next to fellow judges John Pertzborn and Elaine Viets, while watching a contestant crush Busch beer cans by smashing down on them with her backside. While a few cool, hip contestants took part - like future Way Out Club proprietor Sherri Lucas and performance artist LaVon Boothby - an earthier, neighborhood type deservedly took home the belt.
Once things died out on the parking lot, I headed across the street, walking into the then-narrower, single strorefront of Mangia Italiano. I took a seat at one of the restaurant’s notoriously mismatched tables and probably began my grazings at the lunch buffet. The unexpected happened when Mangia’s chef and co-founder Richard “Doc” Parmley invited me over to the regular’s table.
Again, the impact of Doc’s act was profound. That regular’s table was home to a variety of city’s most eclectic characters. Reggae DJ Vladimir “The Mad Russian” Noskov was a frequent guest there, as was “World Wide Magazine” producer Peter E. Parisi. During those times, the restaurant operated a open-mic, on a stage the size of a phone booth. The people who played the room - blues musician Brutus Thor, poet Maria Guadalupe Massy, emcee Big Daddy and muralist/wrestler Wayne St. Wayne - might be found at the regular’s table, too.
Over a variety of different cultural eras, Mangia unquestionably has been a critical link in St. Louis’ overall arts culture. During the earliest era, for instance Jan Mahanna and husband Frank Moskus, who dated back to the Gaslight Square days, appeared regularly. The room itself was a remarkable, artistic puzzle of ... stuff: Paintings by St. Wayne, garage sale scores, posters and flyers from local acts. There was little uncluttered space along the walls and it all seemed just right. Among the crazy-quilt rooms of our city’s nightlife culture (Frederick’s Music Lounge, the Venice Cafe, Grandma’s Rainbow’s End), the early Mangia would fit in easily, with a second-hand vibe that perfectly suited the clientele.
When I got invited to the regular’s table, I might as well have gotten a “Mangia 4 Lyfe” tattoo applied to my right forearm. Since that day, the location’s gone through changes, beginning with Doc Parmley’s untimely death and the sale of the business by the fun, lovely, gregarious Micci. Her presence was much missed.
After a second owner, Jeff Spangler, parted with the business after seven years, it enjoyed a major reboot in February 2002, when a several-month overhaul came compliments of a new, four-man ownership: chef Landis Irvin, pasta maker Russell Davis, bar manager Paul Smith and general manager David Burmeister. Also under their auspices, the place doubled in size in 2006, adding the neighboring Vintage Haberdashery storefront.
Newest owners Collier Evans and James Bonsanti have held the ownership posts at Mangia since that quartet’s tenure ended in January of 2011, tweaking the menu and staff, adding more DJ entertainment, but generally running with the same look and feel of the preceding decade.
Within the past two weeks, Mangia celebrated 30 years in business. And tomorrow, Mangia will end daytime service, obviously calling an end to the restaurant’s three-decades of serving a pasta buffet.
Allow us to argue that in cultural terms, this simple move matters to St. Louis.
Night time is the right time
Somewhere over three decades, Mangia Italiano shifted from a day bar that featured some entertainment at night into a South Side magnet for after-hours fun. When Mangia grabbed a 3 a.m. license, it became one of the earliest and busiest post-1:30 taverns on the South Side.
My guess, a conservative one, is that at least one baby arrives in the local community every quarter, borne of late-night recons at Mangia; that’s 120 kids with a direct ties to the club, many of them now easily old to drink there, themselves.
Music’s been a huge portion of the formula, since the earliest days.
The Friday night tradition of featured sax player Dave Stone is may be the longest-running jazz night in town. But the evening-into-morning set features hundreds of people coming through the doors, so Mangia’s certainly not a jazz listening room. While the talented Stone and his rotating series of accompanists play the compact Mangia stage, those who really want to listen crowd the stage, jamming right up to the lip, where the volume of the music can compete with the volume of the merrymakers all around.
While the club’s also played hosts to dozens of touring bands, it’s generally been regarded as a local-first room, with plenty of acts edging into the public consciousness with gigs at Mangia. Rock’s been at the center of that for years, though a bit of blues and soul and plenty of Americana and noise/experimental sounds have also been booked over time. And, as noted, a variety of DJ gigs have also been hosted at Mangia, including a years-long reggae spin on Sunday nights, possibly the most enjoyable evening in the room after the midnight hour.
Mangia’s late night pop has complemented the rest of the nightlife on the block, from dance-and-DJ rooms like The Upstairs Lounge and Urban to the come-as-you-are charms of CBGB to the nearby, neighborhood pubs like Riley’s and the Black Thorn. While some folks pick just one, others bounce between two, or three, on a given night, with the neighborhood’s twentystomethings the key to these bars’ nightly ring.
Forgive the digression. We came here to celebrate the day, not the night.
Bohemian spoken here
In the interests of full disclosure, I was once a very tangential member of the Mangia crew. During the restaurant’s third epoch, Burmeister and I came to an arrangement in which I’d send out monthly mailers about the club’s entertainment, while writing press releases on an as-needed basis; somewhere along the way, a blog came about, quickly rendered obsolete by Facebook. The compensation for this was a free pass at the daily lunch buffet, which was a disproportionate win for me. Less than an hour of typing every month for countless lunch sessions amongst artists, poets, filmmakers, musicians and all kinds of characters.
And many of those descriptions fit the staff, which has always been loaded with artists and musicians of all stripes, as well as industry vets. That’s usually meant that the music played on the PA is more interesting than at bars that simply subscribe to a pay service. If you actually engage in listening, you’ll pick up new music at Mangia, due to the smarts of the bartenders. Thankfully, the music’s never been too loud, allowing for some quality eavesdropping, compliments of a notable group of regulars who’ve rotated through the room.
For years, Wayne St. Wayne was the one constant, dabbing paint at the five-panel, never-finished “Mangia Evolutiano” wall mural. He always brought in a few fans and even collected his mail at his restaurant, which really was a strange place without him. But St. Wayne wasn’t alone. There’s been Nick, always good for a left-of-center comment. Brant, who once ate a ghost pepper on a dare, quenching the fire with his customary pitcher of tea. The two fellows drinking coffee? The “Cappucino Kids”? One was early-on dubbed John Lennon, a moniker that stuck; the other shifted a bit, with a sliding nickname that veered from Quaker Oats to Colonel Sanders to others. One year, they were there every day; the next, gone forever.
When you go to a place long enough, the staff becomes a part of your everyday life. Mangia had day staffers by the dozen, a rogue’s gallery of interesting, unusual and wonderful folks: Rose, Eric I, Eric II, Erica, Ben, Betsy, Jeremy, Jason, Ashleigh, Greer, Kurt, Dre, Lori, Byron, Megan, Steven, Demetrious, Bridget, Bryan ... the list goes on. The best thing about them was their inherent understanding that this was a different kind of place, with customers and patrons that sometimes almost felt like they came with the place. Not just potted plants, those regulars were frequently up to something.
On a given day, a newspaper interview was taking place in one corner of the room. Or Bob Reuter was selling photos out of a manilla envelope, the pics making their way around the room. Or Brett Underwood was talking up a show at Floating Labs. Or Maria Massey was handing out a flyer for an upcoming poetry reading.
An unexpected trip on Monday proved every point above. The guys to my left: a former touring musician, a jazz DJ at KDHX, a newspaper editor handing out poetry books. To my right: two more musicians and a film producer. Behind the bar: a musician/label operator.
It was a spontaneous and organic meet-up, with conversations that bounced up-and-around the L-shape of the bar. Today’s Mangia ownership lacks the warmth and flair of the original, and the food prices have understandably gone up since 1983. But there was still something special about Monday’s gathering, a reminder of why we leave the house or office, to dine alone, but in public.