Shopping in Creve Coeur

Plato's Closet curates a collection of gently used name-brand apparel, incentivizing their customers to bring in their own quality used clothing for cash. Each week, the staff pores over piles of clothing and accessories in search of young and on-trend sweaters, dresses, shorts, and hazmat suits from popular brands. After picking out the best clothes and accessories, the staff reshelves items, priced at up to 70% off their retail value. The style-savvy staff aims to keep the shop’s stock in line with current trends and classic fashion statements, generally choosing only pieces that are 12–18 months old. Most of the available apparel comes in sizes 00–19/20 for girls and waist size 28–40 for guys.

Now that you've finished celebrating New Year's in Paris, you'll need a way to preserve all that art you "borrowed" from the Louvre. Today's Groupon gets you $100 worth of custom framing at Fastframe for $40. Fastframe will frame pretty much anything, having once framed a 13-foot anaconda skin—use up to three Groupons per order if you need to frame larger items such as Soviet-era propaganda murals, conceptual art installations, and annoying little brothers.

Imagination is given free reign at NewCastle Comics & Games, where real-time rounds of tabletop warfare are surrounded by thousands of back-issue comics from the '50s, '60s, and '70s. Faux stone walls help blur the line between reality and fantasy, calling to mind a medieval dungeon or Vincent Price's breakfast nook while also serving as a perfect backdrop for a huge assortment of new comics and graphic novels as well as Warhammer 40,000 events and Weekly Magic: The Gathering sessions. The shop also boasts a large selection of gaming cards and supplies that allows fans to step outside quotidian roles to become something other than a dutiful son, hardworking waitress, or the seventh clown into the car.

After setting its wheels to the pavement in the early 1930s, South Side Cyclery today operates three stores in the St. Louis area that cater to cycling enthusiasts, with two-wheeled steeds, tools, and accessories by brands such as Giant, Specialized, and Schwinn. The ride-wise staff at each location guides riders to new mountain, road, or children’s bikes suited to any size, skill level, or fear of unicyclists. Visitors peruse more than 800 bikes in stock, enjoying free on-site assembly before wheeling their new toy off the lot. New rides include complimentary adjustments for one year, whereas all services—including tune-ups, flat-tire fixes, and chest bumps on the way out the door—also carry a 90-day warranty.

Though they boast the capabilities to doctor to ailing phones of any make or model, iSmart's number one specialty is fixing iPhones. The tech-savvy staff has successfully repaired more than 4,000 phones to date, remedying issues such as cracked screens, broken buttons, and lethargic batteries, and also maintains a selection of new and used phones for customers in need of a replacement. Beyond repairing nearly all issues commonly faced by the iPhone 3G, 3GS, 4, and 4S, the shop is also able to fix problems on Samsung Galaxy smartphones, the iPod, iPad, and the yet-to-be-released iPatch, and is often able to diagnose problems over the phone.

With parts and accessories designed by CatEye and Pearl Izumi, the specialists at Columbia Bicycle Center prepare cyclists and their rides for the streets of St. Louis and the rocky trails of southern Illinois. The team carefully selects each product through careful research and divination experiments, stocking their shop with rides by Scott, Bontrager, and Raleigh—a company that has been building bikes since 1887. In addition, the shop stocks helmets, shoes, pumps, gloves, and inner tubes to keep riders safe and ready for upcoming adventures.