Today’s installment of Be a Tourist in Your Own Town brings us to Fitz’s Rootbeer on what is known as “The Loop” in the hip part of town, the Delmar Strip between Big Bend and Skinker.

The really cool thing about Fitz’s (besides the bottomless mugs of rootbeer) is the history behind it.

Fitz’s Root Beer made its appearance in
1947, at a small drive-in hamburger joint in Richmond Heights, Missouri.
The secret formula was developed with the help of a flavor house in
St. Louis and remains a closely guarded secret to this day. Ask an
older St. Louis resident about Fitz’s, and chances are he’ll remember
parking his Chevy Bel-Aire convertible in the lot, ordering a couple of
burgers with kitchen sauce, a side of fries, and a large mug of Fitz’s
root beer. And the total bill was under two bucks. The root beer
became the St. Louis favorite.

Really, Fitz’s is your standard hamburger joint with a slightly steeper price tag. Kids meals here are $4.59 each which I think they think they can get away with because of the bottomless mugs of rootbeer they hand out.

And maybe because of the vintage paper cars the meals come in:

I did notice a sign up today that says kids eat free all day on Tuesdays which is good news for you. Not such good news for us since we went today (Monday). But keep that in mind – I don’t know how long that promotion will last, but it’s definitely worth looking in to.

Even though it is pricey, I like the vibe. What you can’t see pictured here is that directly the left of the following photo, they keep their bottling plant behind big glass windows. I’ve only seen them in action one time when we came with an organized field trip, but there was a guy cleaning the equipment there today so I’m guessing they run the plant in the morning. It was cool to see it in action, so it would be worth a phone call to find out when they do that so you can see it too.

They have main level seating as well as upstairs and patio seating available.

I believe I mentioned it is in a hip part of town, so even though you are walking around with your comfy pants on and your four youngish kids, you can still pretend to be part of the happening scene. For about 45 seconds. Then you might trip in front of the loop sign pictured above and draw unnecessary attention to yourself in front of the street workers there on the loop.

That may or may not have happened to me. It may or may not happen to you.