Park Avenue Coffee – Downtown

Get a brochure from the courthouse (in front of the arch) to get a coupon for a free slice of butter cake!
The butter cake was good and the service was fast. Not much to eat here other than desserts.
There were a few nice couches that looked very comfortable.

First of all, the people working here are the nicest people around. Secondly, I love the location. Third, you don’t have to get anything fancy. I got a plain Mocha and its one of the bests I have ever had. I am never going to Starbucks again, this place is a thousand times better plus a fraction of the price!!!

This location had to grow on me. I’ve always been a fan of the original Lafayette Square location but there was just something really «commercial» about this downtown junction.
Today I finally realized I like it. Not so much for the assortment of goodies because the case is often borderline empty. It’s the space that does it for me. I like the positive vibe it exudes. There are signs everywhere reminding you that you; yes you… are a good person! When you walk to the restroom the gender signs read «good person» not male or female. The full length mirror in the restroom reflects a message of «Good Person» and I freaking love that!!!
Yes, the coffee is good. The gooey butter cake is amazing (go to the Lafayette location for variety and availability) the seating is plentiful; offering both outdoor tables as well as leather sofa chairs inside. There’s a message board to keep you in the know and guess what? They serve a delicious variety of hot teas.
Park Ave is the place to be for coffee, tea and even a moral boost.
~Christy

Gooey butter cake is a must
Staff was very friendly. She went out of her way to get me change I needed for the rest of my day
Careful with the tea. It was SUPER hot… burnt my tongue :-(

How could we not stop here before leaving St. Louis?
Staff was great — they greeted us warmly before taking our orders. I got my standard decaf Americano, which was great. My husband had a cappuccino and declared it the best of our six-​state journey.
We shared a piece of gooey butter cake for mostly selfish reasons — I wanted to see how mine stacks up. Good news! I’m doing okay and theirs is amazing. We had the traditional and opted for a corner piece because I like the crusty bits. Do yourself a favor and splurge on this tasty treat while here.
The place was clean, though a little disheveled, which I suspect had to do with the morning rush.

*Good coffee — I ordered a vanilla soy latte and it wasn’t overly sweet and still had the nice coffee roast flavor
*Triple chocolate gooey butter cake — good but not as amazing as I thought it’d be, it tasted mostly like a super sweet cookie/​brownie hybrid
*Plenty of seating to relax/​read/​work
*Friendly cashier and barista
*A little under a mile from the main downtown attractions (Old Courthouse, The Arch, etc)

What can i say? Coffee? Good. Baked goods (especially gooey butter cakes)? Good. Service? Awesome. Great place!

Cool atmosphere, great staff.
Cold brew: comes from a bottle over ice. For the $ 3 tag, expected a fresh brew not an uncapped bottle experience.
Turtle gooey butter cake: good but didn’t knock me off my feet. It’s a thinner version of a brownie.

Decent place with all the options. If you’re not a fan of «S-​bucks», this may fit your needs. Gooey butter cake options galore, however, y’all got my order wrong and didn’t seem to care.
If I need coffee, I’ll be sure to consider Park Avenue.
On the plus side, it’s clean, comfortable, but not sure about the WiFi… for a coffee shop, thought that was standard and open.

Fantastic.
Downside: Left Bank Books used to be located by this wonderful coffee shop, but sadly it closed.

Coffee is my favorite thing ever. Well, after wine. Wait, no, coffee then wine. Wait, no, wine. Wait. Coffee before noon, wine after noon. There we go.
Anyways! BF and I stopped in here to get some coffee on the way to Rooster while waiting on the wait list for Rooster. That’s right, I couldn’t wait 20 minutes till I could sit down and have coffee. Don’t judge. I love Park Ave Coffee because they have… drum roll please… ALMOND MILK!!! I really really wish they had the low cal almond milk, but oh well. If I’m going to be that picky, I guess I’ll make my coffee at home. No, I love this place. I have never had any of their pastries because I rarely eat cake/​pastry type stuff (because I’ll want to eat it ALL!), but some day I’ll give in and get some gooey butter because gooey butter is my fav. BF and I both got sugar-​free vanilla iced latte with almond milk. I think I’m just not a fan of flavors, because I wasn’t the biggest fan. However, I’m not going to diss this place due to my personal taste buds. I love me some mocha and some regular coffee, and this place never fails on those.
So here’s a question I’ll throw out there to other coffee shops: why don’t YOU have almond milk? Some of us vegetarians don’t like soy. I’m just sayin, maybe try to be more like Park Ave Coffee, mkay?

Walked in for lunch. Very low key. Very much reminds me of a city coffee shop. The coffee was strong and flavorful and the bagel was like any bagel. I was a bit bummed that there wasn’t a food selection other than scones and muffins.
Nutshell: not bad for a quick caffeine pit stop or a spot to sit and chat, but wouldn’t go out of my way.

First time trying gooey buttercake and thoroughly enjoyed it! I ordered a red velvet cake one and a chocolate chip cookie dough one. To be honest, the cookie dough buttercake was extremely sweet — more so than I would like. The red velvet was delicious! Personal preference would be slightly less cream cheese frosting spread on top, but that’s easily remedied by wiping some off.
Price was reasonable — a little less than $ 3 for a slice. Employees were extremely friendly in helping me choose which buttercakes to try!

Visiting St. Louis for the first time, i asked friends places and foods to try in this area. A lot suggested to get gooey butter cake before leaving the area. So glad we listened to their suggestions!
We were in the area and husband wanted coffee. I noticed they also carried gooey butter cake so it was a win-​win. Upon ordering, i saw their menu and they were featured on the food network! This got me more excited to try it.
Please dont get offended by my comparison, but it tasted like pecan pie to me. And i love pecan pie! My mouth was in heaven! Husband and i loved it. We couldn’t finish the whole thing so later at the hotel, we warmed it up and it tasted even better!
This is a cute coffee shop and the barista was very helpful in giving suggestions on what to order. Thanks for making our first gooey butter cake experience a memorable one!

I stopped in at Park Avenue Coffee after having it recommended to me as a place I could find pretty good Gooey Butter Cake.
Gooey Butter Cake is a treat invented by my great grandfather whom I never met. It was an accidental creation when he mixed up the quantities of two ingredients. The product ended up extremely popular though, and is now considered a St. Louis specialty. My grandmother remembers the events and the creation of Gooey Butter Cake quite well.
Anyway, so I stopped in to Park Avenue Coffee to try some Gooey Butter Cake which apparently comes in myriad flavors and types. Somehow never having had it before (I’ve mainly lived in Cincinnati and Baltimore for the past 32 years), I decided to go for the original traditional Gooey Butter Cake.
WOW! Moist. Delicious. Not too sweet. Easy to eat. I can see why everyone likes it!
I also grabbed a chai latte which turned out pretty well. I can be a bit judgmental about places making their chai from distillate concentrates stored in cartons… but I understand making it properly takes way too long for most people to wait (10−15min.)
The chai was tasty, if inferior to the traditional brews I make at home.
I would definitely revisit Park Avenue Coffee, and I look forward to trying other flavors of Gooey Butter Cake!

I came for the gooey butter cake. I was told that when in St. Louis, one must try the gooey butter cake and Park Avenue Coffee boasts its great variety of flavors.
We tried the traditional and the pumpkin gooey butter cakes. The two varied drastically in texture. The pumpkin was a lot softer and more like that smooth pumpkin pie or purée texture. The traditional one was extremely buttery, rich, and chewy, especially on the ends. That may put off some people but I really love that texture and it’s the way I love my cookies to be — really chewy but with texture and not crisp. Flavorwise I thought the pumpkin was not memorable but the traditional was solid. Just really good sugar and butter flavors.

Went early Saturday morning. There were customers at one table. Service was great. I got the mini Apple pie. If you like apple pie I highly recommend. I will get it every time. It’s not too sweet. Crust was thick and flavorful. Plenty of apples inside. The top crust had sugar and cinnamon on top. I don’t like the hard sugar but I still really enjoyed it.
Got three gooey butter flavors. Chocolate espresso, I think turtle, and a full pumpkin cake. The pumpkin was definitely my favorite and the best. Strong pumpkin flavor. Not too sweet. Nice texture. Not too hard. I don’t like the hard crust on gooey butter cakes.
Bottom line. Highly recommend the bakery goods. Hope to get the coffee next time.

My friend told me that I absolutely had to try butter cake while visiting St. Louis. So even though we were both still substantially full from our brunch, we carved out some room and stopped by Park Avenue Coffee. We shared one piece of traditional butter cake and each had an iced coffee, which was strong and delicious.
The cake was dreamy. How do they pack in all that buttery goodness? (Don’t answer that.) I’d be interested to try some of the other flavors although I can’t imagine that you could top the original.

Gooey Butter Cake is where it’s at!!!
A local told us we had to try this place and their Gooey Butter cake. We just finished lunch so we only got a slice to share. It was quite good.
You can order online and they ship anywhere in the US. There are 73 different flavors and the store typically serves a handful of them each day.
They also sell coffee beans, cake mix, mugs, and other fun things.

I heard that St. Louis is famous for its gooey butter cake, so I had to try it. Unilocal told me that Park Avenue Coffee is the place to go for GBC. Thank you, Unilocal,for not steering me wrong. The original GBC from this place was delicious.
I have to admit that I was a bit skeptical about trying GBC because I had previously watched a clip of Paula Deen making this item, and it just didn’t look appealing to me. I’m also generally not a big fan of sweets either. But Park Avenue Coffee changed my mind with my first bite: it was gooey, but not too gooey. It was flakey in the right amount, and it certainly didn’t give me the impression that I was going to die from a heart attack from eating this. It was actually pretty delicious.
Park Avenue Coffee boasts of making more than 70 flavored varieties of GBC. I’m keeping this place in my bookmarks to visit again the next time I’m in St. Louis so that I can try some other flavors.