The Golden Hoosier — Restaurant in St. Louis

This restaurant was listed in a Gluten-Free app as a great place for Gluten-Free eating, so my friend and I had to try it. Friend has Celiac and eating out can be exhausting. We were very excited about a menu with lots of options and especially a fryer dedicated to gluten-free to avoid cross contamination.

Well I didn't do much research in advance as Friend had already done it, so I def thought I was heading to a dive bar... and I dressed for it. Spoiler alert - this is NOT a dive bar. The Golden Hoosier is absolutely radiant! Big lovely booths, dark walls and vibe, taxidermy everywhere! Yes I said taxidermy. No this isn't the standard deer heads and turkey tails, this is taxidermy of every kind you could imagine, including one teeny tiny bird we spotted, an alligator and much more in between! I did enjoy looking at all the different taxidermy.

We ordered drinks - White Russian for me, El Fuego for her. Sadly neither of us loved them. White Russian is my go-to drink so I've had a lot of them... this one tasted solely of Kaluha and wasn't very good. I dare to say I almost didn't finish it, but I had to due the price tag. They have a cool drink menu here - be prepared to PAY for that cool menu. Note that I did order a drink off menu. Friend also sadly didn't love the El Fuego and didn't finish it...

For meals we both got the fried chicken sandwich - her GF bun and fries, me with queso mac n cheese. This fried chicken sandwich was AMAZING! LOVED that is was breaded and GF for my friend. It had pepperjack - which is my fave on a chicken sandwich - and it has sweet and spicy pickles and they were perfection. I picked my pickles off and ate em first because I loved them so much! They had ranch for dipping and it was homemade, HEAVY on dill. I liked it, I didn't love it. It was still nice to dip my chicken into :) Friend really enjoyed the fries. I liked the queso mac n cheese but it wasn't great. It was missing something, needs some kind of spice profile. Even pepper could improve it.

Service here was nothing to rave about. Yes we had a server, yes they asked our orders, brought drinks and food and cleared dishes. They weren't rude, but they weren't friendly. At all. The vibe was very much "I'd rather be anywhere else" or "I'm too cool to help you". That was disappointing as we didn't really feel comfortable asking for anything. EX: tables do not have salt/pepper. I coulda used some for that mac n cheese... but I didn't feel like getting the courage to ask. And let me tell you, I am not a shy person...

I would come back again and even dress a little nicer next time lol. But I will skip the drinks and focus on the extreme gluten-free-friendly atmosphere here and appreciate it. It was really nice for my friend not to have to ask 20 questions to get a basic meal. Very much...

My buddy and I decided to watch the STLSC home match earlier in the day while shivering at a Cardinals game on opening weekend. Since our significant others were more than happy to get some time away from us, we landed on the Golden Hoosier as our best option to watch the match. There are televisions throughout the interior of the restaurant as well as out on the patio. We sat at one of the heated patio tables with a good view of the outdoor broadcast of the game. The wait staff quickly took our drink orders while we perused the menu. Since we were both unsupervised, we quickly made the decision to try to sample our way through the menu.

We started with an order of onion dip with red hot riplets and an order of smoked tandoori wings. The onion dip is not your standard onion dip. It contains decent-sized chunks of cooked onion. This dip would be amazing with any chip let alone the spicy red hot riplets. As we dove into the tandoori wings, we quickly realized that we probably should compare them with the buffalo wings. We put in an order and they quickly arrived as a nice chaser to our tandoor wings. The tandoori flavor was not the typical tandoori flavor one thinks of with tandoori chicken found at an Indian restaurant. They are quite tasty and I will definitely order them again. The buffalo wings were quite good and slightly elevated from your standard buffalo wing.

Then, against our better judgment, we each ordered smashburgers. I ordered the bacon jam. Upon the arrival of our entrees, it quickly dawned upon us that we were pretty full from our overindulgence of appetizers. In true fat guy fashion, I sampled a bite of the burger and a few of the fries. The parmesan rosemary fries are a delicious new take on a standard french fry. The homemade ranch dipping dressing should not be overlooked. The two bites I took of my bacon jam burger were spectacular. It's a great combination of fat, salt, sweet, and crunch. I can vouch that it was just as delicious as leftovers the next day!

I'll definitely be going back to the Golden Hoosier as it is too good to pass up and has the benefit of being in my...

I love this place. It is where my husband go on our very rare date nights. Last night we got to go out, and the hostess yelled that she “hates white people” at us. It was really uncomfortable and out of character for this place. We upset her because we went out on the patio and sat down without talking to her first. We thought we would just go order at the bar and not bother anyone since my husband smokes and the un-heated part of patio was empty. It was rainy, so everyone was in the closed off / heated portion of the patio. My husband and I were sitting up under the back awning with our drinks and food. The hostess, (the one that wears a green wig) while seating a table, stopped and projected across the way “did you get permission to sit there?” We said no, she said we had to move, we asked where she would like us to go? She directed us to the fire pit. We told her no problem, and got up to move. She sat the table, then started yelling “this is why I hate white people” she went on to explain exactly what we (unknowingly) did while we were sitting just a few yards away, looking at her. We are cool with everyone who works there so the guy she was venting to was just trying to get away from the conversation, especially because it was happening RIGHT in front of us. He didn’t respond or agree. He just looked at us and kinda walked away. She really hurt my feelings. We truly didn’t mean to offend her or break any rules, obviously. We weren’t belligerent and were quick to correct the mistake. She still responded so hatefully. We’ve never caused an issue here before. It was uncomfortable for the people she was seating, who got stuck in the middle of her scolding us, it was uncomfortable for us, and the bar back she pulled in to it.

This place is known for the good vibes, good people, and great food & drink. The atmosphere is amazing. I highly recommend this place. But I am hoping that this hostess gets the breaks and training she needs to treat people (yes, even the white...