Belleville Illinois ended up being a real winner for us. This is a great town and definitely worth a weekend visit or two.
I know a lot of people driving this far will spend most of their vacation time in St. Louis, but we actually avoided the crowded bigger city to visit this area and I am so glad that we did.
We spent a lot more time here than we planned because the place is so nice. We thought we would stop by the restaurant for a light lunch and we ended up walking around, shopping in their country store, and having floats at the custard shop.
They have their own fruit orchard too, which was huge!
I love places like this, and it seems that they are getting more rare by the second.
Anyway, let me give you a few reasons why I REALLY love Eckert's.
First off, the kids working there were VERY friendly. I don't know why more shops don't stress that it is good (and it helps sales) if you are friendly, but Eckert's has this down.We asked an employee in their coffee section for some sort of label as the bag of coffee we were buying was a gift, and we wanted our friend to know that the coffee came from Eckert's. Enthusiastically, the employee went to hunt one down for us!
Later, at the custard shop, we were trying to figure out what we wanted. The bubbly custard expert told us that large floats were on sale for $2.50 today. That solved my choice making dilemma. As my wife asked if they had an oreo something or other, the employee excitedly said, "Oh yeah! We can do that!"I assume Eckert's treats their people well, because EVERYONE just seemed happy to be there. AND THAT made me happy to be spending some of my vacation time there!
They have a very cozy picnic table area near the custard shop where they were playing great, mostly summer time type songs. Oh, I didn't get to do this while I was there, but they have LIVE music on the weekends during the summer!
Go to Eckert's if you are ever near St. Louis. The place has an authentic friendly, Mayberry feel to it. Just being there is relaxing!
http://www.eckerts.com/belleville.htm
2 comments:
Hi Jim. Thank you so much for taking the time to visit Eckert's and for sharing your experience through your blog! I am so glad that you and your wife had such a great time. I am not sure if you get back to the area often, but I would like to send you a couple free passes to our farm in Millstadt. It is only open during September & October, but it is so fun!! If you are interested in the passes, please email me your mailing address to amanda.morgan@eckerts.com and I will drop them in the mail. Thanks again for sharing your experience and I hope to see you again soon!
Hey Amanda! Thanks for checking out the blog! I do think this would give us an excuse to make it back up to the area, and to spend some more time at Eckerts! Thank ya!
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