In Florissant, the Highway Is Growing Chains. Old Town Is Growing Something Else.

Drive Highway 67 through Florissant and you'll notice the corridor filling in fast: a second Aldi, a new fitness center taking over the old Gold's Gym, a credit union in a repurposed bank building. It's the kind of growth that shows up in permit filings and grand-opening ribbons, easy to track because it announces itself with a sign and a parking lot.

A mile or so away, on Rue St. Francois, something different has been happening. A building that sat around as an underused piece of city history, the old Narrow Gauge Railroad depot in Tower Court Park, is now one of the busiest kitchens in town. Nobody put up a big sign for that one either, not at first. It just started filling up.

That's the actual story in Florissant right now: two different kinds of growth, running on two different timelines, in two different parts of the same small city. If you live here, you've probably felt both without connecting them. This fall, the calendar gives you a reason to see how they fit together.

The Building Nobody Knew What to Do With

For years, the depot house in Tower Court Park was one of those Old Town landmarks everyone recognized and nobody quite used. That changed when, as Riverfront Times reported, Mariano and Anthony Costello, brothers who grew up in the area after moving from Ferguson as teenagers, turned it into Costello's Pizzeria & Subs.

The backstory is a genuinely local one. Mariano spent years as a general foreman at Spire while making frozen pizzas on the side, eventually turning out 50 to 100 pies a month for a customer base stretching from St. Charles down to south county. When he and Anthony decided to open a real storefront, they leaned on connections from The Hill, St. Louis's landmark Italian neighborhood, specifically the Vitali family, for guidance on breads, meats, and how to run a proper deli counter. They painted the depot's interior in the colors of the Italian flag and built the menu from family recipes: scratch dough, a three-cheese blend, meatballs, even a gluten-free crust from a father-in-law's recipe made in limited batches each month.

They weren't chasing a big launch. In its report on the shop's 2024 opening, Riverfront Times quoted Mariano:

"We'll start slow and see where it goes. We're just excited for the opportunity."

It went further than slow. By early 2026, coverage of the shop was calling it one of Florissant's newest neighborhood favorites, built on the kind of loyal, repeat traffic that's hard to fake. If you've eaten there, you already know the room: a converted rail depot with 14-inch specialty pizzas coming out of a kitchen where you can still see the building's bones.

Worth knowing before you go: as of last fall, Costello's kept limited hours, Wednesday through Saturday from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m., closed Sunday through Tuesday. Call ahead if you're planning around it.

Eleven Grocery Stores Now, and Counting

While Old Town was absorbing a new independent kitchen, the Highway 67 corridor was absorbing its second Aldi. The store at 240 Howdershell Road opened its doors on October 17, 2024, with the usual grand-opening giveaways and a company statement noting Aldi had served Florissant for more than 21 years by that point. According to the city's own economic development office, that second location pushed the total number of grocery stores within Florissant's city limits to eleven.

Eleven is a lot for a city this size, and it says something specific: this stretch of Highway 67 is optimizing for convenience and price competition, not identity. That's not a criticism. It's just a different growth pattern than what's happening a mile away, where the draw isn't square footage or a second checkout line, it's a sandwich recipe passed down from a mother and grandmother.

Here's the contrast side by side:

Same city, same rough timeframe, two completely different reasons for a resident to show up.

Where the Two Tracks Meet This Month

Here's why this matters right now instead of as a piece of local trivia: the fall calendar is about to pull both audiences into the same three blocks of Old Town.

September 30 is the last Wednesday Night Out Party of the season, the monthly street event Florissant Old Town Partners runs from May through September on the last Wednesday of each month, with music, food, and games filling Rue St. Francois. It's the final call before the season's format changes, and it's the kind of evening where someone who normally shops the Highway 67 corridor ends up parked in Old Town instead.

Then on October 11, Old Town hosts its 27th annual Florissant Fall Festival, a full day of crafters, vendors, pumpkin painting, a dog show, pony rides, and a car show along the same stretch of street. If you've never made it out for this one, it's worth building a Sunday around. It's also, not coincidentally, the kind of turnout that puts a new depot-building pizzeria in front of people who might not have found it otherwise.

One small logistics note if you haven't been down that way recently: the city wrapped up a stretch of sewer improvement work in Historic Old Town in early September, part of a roughly $2.6 million project through MSD Project Clear. The work restrictions that briefly complicated foot traffic near the district ended September 7, so the sidewalks and street access should be clear for both events.

What Else Is Already There

Neither of this fall's events is introducing Old Town cold. The district still has its established anchors, and they're worth building an evening around alongside anything new. Hendel's has been a landmark since 1994, when Ed Bennett bought the historic building and turned it into what's remained one of the district's steadiest dinner spots, known for its outdoor patio and a menu that leans into fine dining without losing the casual feel. Narrow Gauge Brewing Company keeps a rotating selection of in-house beers a short walk from the depot. And if you're closing out a Wednesday Night Out or a Fall Festival afternoon with something sweet, Old Town Donut Shop stays open 24 hours and has been ranked among the top donut shops in the St. Louis area, so there's rarely a bad time to stop in.

Put together, that's a genuinely full evening within a few blocks: a new independently owned restaurant that's already earning its reputation, a brewery, a historic dinner spot, and a donut counter that never really closes. None of that existed in quite this combination even two years ago.

The Actual Takeaway

The interesting part isn't that Florissant is growing. Plenty of St. Louis County suburbs are adding stores and restaurants right now. The interesting part is that Florissant is growing in two directions that don't compete with each other. Highway 67 is getting more efficient and more convenient. Old Town is getting more distinct and more local. A resident doesn't have to choose one track over the other, and this fall's calendar happens to be the moment both tracks are worth walking through in person.

If you're weighing a move within Florissant, or into it, and want to talk through how different pockets of the city actually function day to day, not just what a listing photo shows, Daryl Holland is happy to walk through it with you. Schedule a free consultation whenever it's useful.