Local Harvest Cafe

Not sure what the hype is all about this place, I found the food to be average (may be a tad below average) and the service disappointing. I never received the soup I ordered!

I like many things about this place and I really want to love it but there are several crucial things they fell short, one of which is service.
I have been to Local Harvest Café for brunch a few times. The service is so sub-​par that I’m reluctant to go back again. Last time we went, the restaurant was half empty and it took 20 mins for the waitress to bring us the menus and water. She mentioned the Specials of the day to us and immediately after, she said «Are you ready to order?». Seriously? No — we haven’t even looked at the menu yet. Maybe that was a mistake because it took her another 10 mins to come back and another 20 mins for our food to be out. Afterwards, there was no more service on water, drinks, or whatsoever! It’s a small restaurant with quite a few waiters — I just don’t understand why they couldn’t do a better job and be more observant.
I understand this is sort of a hippie place but c’mon, it doesn’t mean you serve yourself, does it? Or are they just all high?
I like the food for the most part, granted sometimes they had a hard time balancing healthy and greasy, mixing vegan and junk food. If you ordered the right things on the menu, you would be pleased, otherwise, it’s devastating.
I really hope they could improve the service and train their employees! I can see the potential of this place, if and only if they could improve on service.

Saturday morning brunch — this is a GREAT place for this! They have a diverse menu with clearly marked vegan options. Their coffee and teas are bottomless and they also have a series of alcoholic breakfast beverages like mimosas and Bloody Mary’s. I ordered the bottomless coffee and vegan stuffed French toast. Food was excellent with service to match. AND they source their ingredients locally! I plan to come back here often to try more food.

Don’t let all the meat, eggs, and cheese in the menu fool you — this place is known for their vegan fare. They make vegan stuffed French toast, with seasonal flavors! Get yours early because they WILL run out on a busy Sunday. Vegan polenta — also a great option (but spicy)! Their coffee is also tasty. Flavor is well rounded, and is special made for them by a local roaster. If you like coffee-​shop drinks, be aware because do not make any drinks with espresso.
I’ll be back as soon as I can!

Listen, if you’re brunching this is the SPOT. Cute spot, friendly service, and clearly homemade love filled food. Joseph was our server for Saturday brunch and although he doesn’t usually isn’t serving he was such a treat. My husband and I are very into fermentation and Joseph was their head fermenter! That being said, it’s impressive that all of the ginger beers, kombucha, and fermented veggies are made in house.
The price points are very reasonable and there are bountiful vegan options. The best of the best (we tried 5) are the stuffed french toast (flavors are ever rotating!!) and the polenta cakes with sausage. The mimosas are also poured with fresh juice. I love everything this place is.

So good! It was cheaper for me and my boyfriend to eat an awesome, local, brunch made from real food than ihop! I’m newly vegan and it had many options for me and tons for my non vegan boyfriend. Service was great, it’s one of my new favorites! Nice patio!

From the french toast to the breakfast burrito, this is our favorite brunch in town.
We come almost every week, and are guaranteed great portions, solid service, a fun environment and fresh eats.
Local Harvest is, truly, a south city treasure. Worth the wait every time!
Top items:
— Breakfast burrito. It won’t ever disappoint.
— French toast, especially the chocolate banana and dreamsicle (they change the flavor each week)
— Breakfast potatoes are spicy and flavorful.
— Biscuits and gravy are YUM. The homemade biscuit is perfectly crispy on the outside and soft on the inside.
— Homemade hot sauce. Need I say more.

My partner and I were visiting St. Louis for the weekend and were itching for some vegan brunch.
Local Harvest Café delivered!
Though folks working there were very friendly it seemed like they could use one more pair of hands to help out.
Aside from that we had the vegan slider and vegan french toast stuffed with blueberries and peach– BEST french toast ever! Can’t wait to go back

Great coffee. Great staff. I absolutely LOVE their salads. I am a huge fan of the foundation salad and their chicken salad sandwich. The only con is the lack of seating.

Loved the breakfast and the local vibe at this place. It’s a smaller place so you might have to wait or eat at the narrow bar with chairs at the front of the place. Wait for a table, I say.
The staff was really friendly, funny, and unique, in a good way.
The food was right on target for some good breakfast grub. I had some well made eggs with a side of wheat toast and tried the veggie chorizo, which was too greasy for my taste. Coffee was good and they kept pouring it. My dining companion had a pineapple/​cream cheese french toast special that was out of this world yummy. Get that if you don’t have anything else do later in the day!
Another side note is that this place was mentioned in the «36 Hours in St. Louis» article in the NY Times!

I’ve visited Local Harvest Café on two occasions in the past year and have been very impressed with the offerings both times! A perfect fit for the Tower Grove South neighborhood, this little joint is nestled among other cool shops and eateries on Morgansford.
With the two groups, I’ve sampled their hummus/​dip trio, their trout dip, their house salad, one of their homemade soups, and their veggie burger. All have been delicious and tastefully put together using locally obtained ingredients. Each time I’ve left LHC thinking that the meal I’ve enjoyed really «hit the spot».
While their hours are now pared down to dinner and weekend brunch hours, they now offer cool sustainable classes (there’s a class on the benefits of coconut oil that I’m hoping to go to!) that are incredibly affordable for college students and STL residents alike. LHC is most definitely another effortlessly cool restaurant in STL that I have and will continue to gladly recommend!

Delicious everything!!! Try the Biscuits with Country Style Gravy!!! They are insane!!! :)

My wife, daughter and I had brunch here after church. There is street parking but you can park behind the restaurant.
The seating is ample inside but was full. We were happy to sit outside under their covered patio. They accommodated our daughter in a high chair.
Check out the menu here, lots of good stuff to choose from.
I ordered their Hit the Trail granola with peanut butter. It is served in mason jar and all the ingredients are layered for you to mix which I thought was fun presentation; it was very good. I also ordered their Molly vegetarian burger with cheese, tomato and pickled jalapeño. It was served with chips. This is a large sandwich and with all the fixings was excellent. The burger is made with pinto beans. I have had veggie burgers with lentils and black beans but this is the first time with pinto beans. I liked this a lot. I do wish there was a choice of bun option. I had coffee.
My wife ordered the Local Slinger with the vegan chili but added breakfast sausage and a quinoa and spinach salad. She is a nursing mother and if that means anything to you, this filled her up which says a lot and really enjoyed it. She had tea.
The service is friendly. The place is low key but
We love brunch and would definitely make a point to stop here especially to try other brunch menu options. Around this restaurant is tower grove park, the Botanical Gardens and a bike St. Louis route. You could plan your whole fun day around starting or stopping here to eat! It is totally worth it.

We went for brunch. There was a small outdoor patio on the south side of the restaurant. Eating inside, we found the shop to be a wide space which could prove to be loud. Happily, we notice CCR’s Greatest Hits playing through the dining room.
Out waitress was on top of things with drinks and taking the orders. She seemed well informed and even wrote the order down. There is nothing more frustrating than having a server not write something down then receive the wrong items. It may be the kitchen’s fault but I’d have more confidence if it was written down.
My over easy egg was cooked perfectly and the gravy for biscuits was terrific.
We were not fans of the corned beef hash. The corned beef was tough and oddly sliced. The potatoes were so-​so.
Wife’s waffles were great. Between the gravy and the waffles, we will return.

Since my time here is St. Louis is limited and I want to try all the delicious foods here in StL, I had decided that I wasn’t going to any restaurant more than once.
I broke that rule for Local Harvest Café. I’ve eaten there a few times and taken visiting friends there for brunch.
If you’re into the local food scene or you’re a vegan or a health nut or just someone who likes good food, Local Harvest Café is worth checking out. It can get really busy but it’s worth the wait. During the warmer weather days, the outdoor patio is a cute seating area but I love, LOVE the little indoor area. The cute carrots on one wall, the upcycled lamps, the metal ceiling… It’s a lovely area.
It’s also fun to people-​watch at Local Harvest Café since you get some of the locals who live in the neighborhood, people who just finished a pick-​up game of soccer (or some sport) at Tower Grove, hippies who are arguing about the best way to compost, or well-​dressed hoity-​toity folks. It’s a very popular spot with just about every type of person in the 18 – 35 age range. I’m sure people of other age groups go there, too, but it seems like everytime I’ve been, it’s been full of 18 – 35 year olds.
As for the food, it’s pretty darn tasty. I’ve eaten some of their vegan and non-​vegan dished and liked everything I’ve had so far. I can vouch that the Cuban, the vegan Banh Mi, the vegan polenta, and the chili are delish. The friends I’ve gone with seemed happy with what they had, too.
The service deserves high marks. They happened to be out of ginger when I ordered the Kaley’s Comet, so one of the kitchen staff went out into their garden and dug up some ginger. I thought that was pretty cool and the drink was tasty, so much so that after my friend tasted mine, she ordered one, too. Thankfully, the kitchen staff had dug up more ginger than just what they needed for my drink.
I definitely rec Local Harvest Café.

Really great host: he really kept things flowing and kept everyone who was waiting informed.
The space is so tiny!
For breakfast I had the chorizo pot pie. I can definitely see why they won best brunch. On the side, there was fresh blackberry jam, which was not too sweet, and really let the flavor of the blackberry speak for itself. I also ordered a chocolate banana muffin, which was smooth (not full of lumpy banana pieces), and had plenty of chocolate chunks. I also had a fresh fruit bowl: unlike many other places, the fresh fruit was actually fresh and diverse, not the same old boring banana, grape and strawberry pieces.
We also had a ginger apple orange smoothie. Once again, it was fresh, natural, and did not taste like it was full of sugar. The ginger was pungent, and the orange and apple combo balanced it well.
The great thing about this breakfast was that all the flavors shined through, and they didn’t need sugar — the chef let the flavors in the food come through. This place reminds me of café osage, but LH is an even better choice since I left full!

Let me put this in as clear of language as I think I can. Local Harvest Café can improve your life.
Ok, ok, you’ll want proof. Or at least rationale because beyond having eaten there just twice, I can’t actually prove that they will improve your life.
1) The food is wonderful. Not just it tastes great, wonderful but rich in natural flavors, nutritionally balanced, and free from crap you don’t want to eat.
2) The people. They’re just kind. I am just giddy inside when a business figures out the formula to hire great people. People that want to be there, that appreciate being there, and that want to share in the experience with the customers that come there.
3) The experience. It’s everything, it’s the fact that this is locally owned, that they’ve set up shop in a growing neighborhood to sell local, that they also have a grocery, that at least on one occasion at least one server was so happy, he was dancing, that the (relatively small) dining room is filled with conversation and smiling humans, that you leave satisfied of all of that, and that you’ve fueled your body with something it wants.
It wouldn’t be a fair review if I didn’t note a couple things that were just a little off. The vegan sausage — It was wheat gluten and very little flavor. As a vegan, I worry that things like that is what non-​vegans get a hold of and start believing veganism is about.
The potato scramble was supposed to have peppers but seemed to just have breaded and baked potatoes. Maybe I got the wrong thing — not sure, either way it was good, even if a little on the room temperature side.
Unfortunately, I live about 250 miles away in Kansas City but I’m in Stl a lot and will try to get to Local Harvest Café as often as I can.

This is normally one of my favorite places to go in STL with my friends. The last time we went I was more than a little anooyed.
We went on a Sunday afternoon, yes it was busy, we weren’t in a rush. When we walked in we said that we had 6 adults and an infant… we were looked at like we had 9 heads. The hostess seemed more than upset that we brought our son with us.
I know it is a small place but come on!
We sat outside and for the most part the food was tasty… Sadly my salad was pitiful. 13 $ for a handful of lettuce, a tiny amount of some veggies and what seemed like scraps of fish. Come on… if a sandwich is the same price and takes up an entire dinner plate shouldn’t a SALAD be similar.
Sad.

Guys, I can’t. I just can’t.
There’s a new #1 for «the best brunch Aimee has ever had in St. Louis,» and it’s Local Harvest. It all went down on Saturday morning after a great time at the Tower Grove Farmer’s Market. We showed up to LH around 11am and only had to wait about 20 minutes for a table on the patio.
The patio is tiny, but gorgeous. Fresh flowers everywhere, ceiling fans helping with the breeze, and cool music playing. Staff is always on point, food wait times are generally short, but you already know all that. Let’s just talk about the food!
What I love about Local Harvest is that even the most simple menu items are incredible because they’re made using high-​quality products. My plate of scrambled eggs, sausage, potato hash, and toast might have looked boring to some people, but it was better than I ever could have imagined. I also got to steal some of my friend’s chorizo pot pie, and I quickly understood why he was so happy. The hit of the morning, however, was the goat cheese and strawberry-​stuffed french toast. While I don’t think I could have managed eating the entire thing because it was so rich, I thoroughly enjoyed the few bites I had. I think I just sat there starry-​eyed for a few minutes after we were done eating.
We are so lucky to have so many great brunch options in St. Louis, and this one tops the charts for me. I’ll be back as soon as I can!

Simply lovely: the space, the menu, the service — all spot on.
Vegans/​vegetarians can have a lovely date night dinner too! Check out the specials board for some unique and delicious seasonal options.
Highly recommend dinner here.

Not much seating if it’s too cold to go outside, but if you arrive early enough for brunch, you can be seated immediately. The wall menu is a bit overwhelming and busy, so I’m glad they had a print menu.
Very popular brunch location, and for good reason. It was pretty delicious and had more to offer than just eggs and pancakes.
Tried the:
Vegan Burrito– not really vegan when you add eggs. What’s breakfast without eggs? Vegan chorizo had a lot of flavor. Great salsa on the side.
Vegan French toast– coconut/​chocolate deliciousness. Still really creamy without any dairy involved.
I would definitely return for a casual weekend brunch. Not pretentious, filling, solid/​large portions.