Riley’s Pub

Yay for the new no smoking law and our return to Riley’s for delicious, inexpensive pizza, friendly bartenders, drinks and the best jukebox in St. Louis, plus comfy, classic wooden décor.

Half off STL-​style pizzas on Mondays and Tuesdays (that makes a large cheese $ 5). $ 3 drink specials the rest of the week. Darts in the back room. Consistent bartenders. This is one of my favorite dives, and has been for years.
Yes, smoking is allowed. However, this is made quite clear with signage before you even enter the place. If smoking bothers you, this may not be your location, although I notice it’s not bad in the back room. I don’t smoke, and I always gravitate back there for this reason.

We didn’t order food, however, any bar that sells Smithwick’s on draft for $ 3 on a Saturday night… I’m a fan! Our friends ordered a pizza to go so we might have to try that next time, considering that’s the only food they offer. Hard to go above a 3 Star when a place doesn’t have more than 1 menu item. However, it’s a great neighborhood pub to hang out at plus they have a huge patio in front.

LOVE the beer the PIZZA and the Jukebox. Wish there was no smoking and I would come here more often! Just love this place! The Pizza is thin crust and tasty! Mon and tues. Are ½ price pizza nights when u eat in. Great beer special everyday and real dart boards and games available. If ya really can’t stand the smoke the outdoor patio is a good retreat!!!

Rileys Pub is up the road from me… walking distance. I think it’s a great place to hang. Local pub, cheap, good St. Louis style pizza. I like the atmosphere and like that is on the corner so you can see everything when you sit outside. All around a good place. I find it to be way better than Tick Tock Tavern down the road. I’ll do my Tick Tock Review shortly.

Decent pizza. Allows smoking, and by that I mean everyone smokes who’s in there. Although I sometimes like the smell when I’m at a bar. It can be overbearing. Good local bar tho. Very laid back.

Cheap and friendly, with clean bathrooms and great Irish tunes on the jukebox. They also have a ton of board games! Great pizza.

Reasonably priced? Yes
Nice atmosphere? Yes
Surly bartender? Yes
Drink specials? Yes
Smoking? Yes
Cheap reheated frozen pizza? Yes
You can’t find a better dive bar in the city. It’s exactly what it’s supposed to be and I love it for that. If you want a $ 18 martini, don’t go here. If you want good company with plenty of regulars you gotta go to Riley’s Pub. Great location. Great vibe.

Stopped in on a whim for some takeout on a Saturday night and was pleasantly welcomed. As a new gal to St Louis, it was great to find a place close to where I live that serves really great pints & pizza! As an added bonus the bartender was super friendly. It’s one of the first places I’ve been by myself that I didn’t feel awkward being there alone and will definitely be stopping back in soon! …my experience with St Louis-​style pizza is fairly limited, but this place has, by far, been the best. I ordered a pizza with all kinds of veggies and they were sliced thinly enough and the pizza cooked long enough that they were roasted not just sitting on top half raw. Might have to make this place part of my regular routine!

If you live in the area and you haven’t stopped by Rileys, I would highly suggest it. I have lived a couple blocks away for months now but for some reason never felt drawn to Rileys. I think it is the green awning that scared me. Anyways, I finally decided to check it out last night to watch some baseball and I was very pleasantly surprised. The bartender (Ashley) was very friendly, the beer selection is great for a divish bar, and the pizza is some of the best St. Louis pizza I have ever tried. There was also a great crowd and solid specials. Everything I could ever want in a neighborhood bar.
See you there!

This is a great neighborhood pub. The Pizza is really good. It is St. Louis style. The beer was served nice and cold. It looks like they have specials on different nights. The bartender was nice and efficient. And some friends liked that they had a jukebox.

I have been searching for a great hole in the wall Irish pub in St. Louis. Riley’s certainly fits the bill. As soon as you walk in ye atmosphere overtakes, you feel as though you could sit at a booth and get lost for hours in good conversation with friends. The bartender was pleasant and welcoming, and most importantly, knew how to pour a proper Guinness. Didn’t try the food yet, but certianly plan to. I highly recommend Riley’s pub.

A true corner bar, at its best.
Riley’s is filled with locals, good music and smoke. If the smoky bar atmosphere bother you, this is not your place unless you decide to sit outside on the patio area, otherwise, this place is a gem.
Monday/​Tuesday is ½ price STL style pizza and Wed are $ 3 pints. They have a respectable selection of Irish whiskey’s and the prices, in general are reasonable.
Patrons & staff are all friendly and eager to strike up a conversation — I had a chat with one guy who had been coming in there since he was a kid and his dad would drink there — it was called something else at that point, but still!
Monday/Tuesday’s are particularly popular with the college crowd due to the cheap pizza, so don’t be surprised.
They have life music a couple of days a week, run a shuttle to Mardi Gras and have great St. Patty’s day specials — the owner told me that it takes them 3 days to make the corned beef!
What more could you ask for?

Nice little bar in Tower Grove. Really good music on Wednesday nights, along with $ 10 pitchers of Harps. You can smoke inside the bar, but they have a small outdoor patio if you don’t like smelling like smoke.
Pros: good music on Wed, nice atmosphere
Cons: they allow smoking inside

Cheap drinks, a fun atmosphere and friendly staff. I did, however, have a hard time enjoying myself entirely since it is an indoor smoking establishment. I knew what I was getting into ahead of time, so that couldn’t really be a complaint, just something that’s good to know about ahead of time! Ton’s of fun games available.

Hmm. Where to start. Let’s start with the jukebox, because it can serve as a window for what kind of place this. It’s old school. Make a selection and you see it spin your pick to the player, feed it, and then hear it play, all with satisfying, 20^th century geary noises. Since this is not an internet jb, it’s got the feel of somebody’s private collection. I suspect it’s the staff’s. Since it’s discs, it’s albums, and sometimes obscure ones. You’ll have to roll the dice when you see a band you know but not the song you want. Roll them. It’ll be ok. If you can’t put a fiver in and spend it out, maybe need to find a bar that more closely matches your taste.
Watch the traffic run the stop sign on Arsenal from their new outdoor patio, or throw some darts (steel tip), or order st. louis style pizza (half price on mon & tues). this is a fine neighborhood pub; you’d be lucky to live near it, and fortunately I do.

Riley’s is a quintessential neighborhood Irish pub. It’s dark, it’s smokey and it’s full of regulars. If you don’t like dark smokey places, steer clear. If you can handle that though, I suggest stopping in on Monday or Tuesday for half price STL Style pizza, which has been touted by many of my friends as the best in the city. I prefer my pies to be of a thicker variety, so I can’t really cast a vote on that, but they few pieces I’ve had were good.
The front is dark and classic Pub. The back is brighter with darts and several video games (golden tee for one). The bartender is nice, though not overly friendly and the lady who brings out the pizza (his wife I believe) is super sweet. Some nights I can hear Irish music from my back deck, which is awesome. They’ve also added a large patio, which is great to get away from the smoke and enjoy your beverage of choice outside and watch the world go by on Arsenal.

The beautiful wife and I forgot that reading is fundamental — as in, make sure that when you go to a place that when it comes to food 90%+ of the reviews have only mentioned St. Louis style pizza, there’s a chance that they DO NOT SERVE ANY OTHER FOOD BESIDES THAT.
How the hell did we miss that fact?
First off, I should remove the «Irish» category and replacing with «Pizza (Crappy).» Shamrock shakes from McDonald’s are more Irish than their Hoosier Pizza topped with vile Hoosier Cheese.
Second, to add injury to insult, I wasn’t all that thrilled with their pour of Guinness.
Third, well, I’ll just stop.
The only redeeming factor this evening (and the second star) is that you can smoke in there. Which we even didn’t do despite their being a cigar in our possession.
Maybe on another night under different circumstances (a.k.a. that I’d never be hungry), I’d have a different opinion, but honestly, there are other dark, smoky (or formerly smoky) corner bar that I’d rather cozy up to.

I think I found a new favorite pub!
This place was dimly lit with lots of character an old-​ass yet friendly bartender. Plus there was a live 8 piece Irish band playing at the doorway. The bartender says they play ever Wednesday. $ 3 pint specials on Shlafly was nice too. Smoker’s beware, this pub likes it’s tobacco. Cool, eclectic ash trays everywhere inviting you to smoke.
I just visited to drink. I saw a sign about pizzas but didn’t partake. I’m not sure that they make anything else to eat.
Do you remember the first time you went to McGurk’s and sat in the front room with the band playing. Everyone is so happy, the room has a historic vibe to it. Within minutes you’re tapping your feet and ordering car bombs. Then you realize that the rest of the bar is nothing compared to the front room. Just over-​hyped, over-​grown, missing it’s true character…
…We’ll Riley’s is like the front room of McGurks and nothing more. Come for a pint and a smile. And if you like live music, come on a Wednesday.

More than meets the eye, Riley’s has a back room. I came back here on a Friday night to find the front of the house hopping, and the back of the house chillin with video games. They’ve got a nice table top game in the back, and while it doesn’t have naked photo hunt (bummer i know!) it does have a lot of cool games on it. I was playin for Tommy, sos if yous go back there and beat my high scores, me and my big brotha Rickeys gonna come after yas!
An older gentleman also bought my round of Schlafly’s cuz he said I didn’t look old enough to be almost 30. Cute! If you couldn’t already tell, I love going to places where I can drink with my elders. in fact, I need to make a list!