The Anvil Saloon & Restaurant – Where 170 Years of History, a Legendary 1850s Steamboat Bar, World-Famous Onion Rings, and Small-Town Hospitality Create Sainte Geneviève’s Most Beloved Dining Institution Some restaurants chase trends. Others chase Michelin stars. The Anvil Saloon & Restaurant, occupying the same downtown Sainte Geneviève building since 1855, chases neither. What The Anvil does—and what keeps locals returning weekly and tourists traveling from Europe, Asia, and across America specifically to experience—is deliver honest, home-cooked comfort food in atmosphere so authentically old-time that you half expect steamboat captains and frontier merchants to walk through the door. The centerpiece isn’t just the food (though those onion rings are genuinely world-famous). It’s the bar itself: a massive, ornate back bar that arrived via steamboat in the 1850s, reportedly salvaged from a vessel that sank or ran aground in the Mississippi River, then hauled by oxcart to this building where it’s anchored conversations, celebrations, and community gatherings for nearly 170 years. Located at 46 South Third Street on the historic downtown square, The Anvil occupies building that began as hardware store (1850-1855, hence “Anvil” name referencing blacksmith’s tool), transformed into gentlemen’s saloon (1855 when the Vaeth family purchased it and installed
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