St. Louis Magazine

About St. Louis Magazine

St. Louis Magazine is the monthly city magazine of St. Louis, Missouri — a locally owned publication that has spent more than five decades chronicling the Gateway City's dining, culture, neighborhoods, and civic life. Published by SLM Media Group and distributed across the St. Louis metropolitan area, it combines long-form profiles, discerning dining and cultural guides, in-depth features, and its signature best-of lists into what it calls "the smart, sophisticated guide to your city." Its flagship franchise, the A-List Readers' Choice Awards, has grown into one of the region's most influential civic traditions, drawing hundreds of thousands of nominations and votes each year. The magazine's official website is stlmag.com.

History

The magazine's lineage stretches back to 1969, when it was founded as Replay, a lifestyle periodical with its home office in the basement of the Cheshire Inn, a local hotel. Its founding president and publisher was Steve Apted, and its editor was Doris Lieberman. The young magazine was quickly renamed The St. Louisan, and in 1977 it took its current title, St. Louis Magazine. A history of the region's press notes that the magazine emerged in the mid-1970s, evolving from the earlier Replay of 1969, which itself traced to an even earlier incarnation of the publication in the 1960s. The magazine's library holdings reach back to at least 1963, a reminder that its publishing roots in the city are deeper than any single masthead suggests.

The magazine changed hands several times in the late twentieth century. In 1990 it was acquired by the St. Louis Business Journal, the city's business weekly. In 1994 it was acquired by Hartmann Publishing, the company behind the alternative weekly The Riverfront Times — a purchase that would define the magazine's modern identity. In 1998 Hartmann Publishing sold The Riverfront Times to New Times Media but retained St. Louis Magazine, which publisher Ray Hartmann then shepherded through what the city of St. Louis would later call its "resurrection and revitalization."

Over the years the magazine's editorship included several notable literary figures. Author Harper Barnes served as editor for a time, leaving in 2001 to concentrate on writing books while continuing as senior writer and movie columnist. Other former editors include Steve Friedman, Jeannette Batz Cooperman — who arrived around 1990 as managing editor under Friedman — and Stephen Schenkenberg. The current editor, per the magazine's reference listings, is Jarrett Medlin. The publication operates out of the St. Louis area, with its business offices in Maplewood, Missouri, as SLM Media Group, the privately held company behind both the magazine and its related digital and events properties.

Ownership and leadership

St. Louis Magazine is published by St. Louis Magazine, LLC, under the umbrella of SLM Media Group — a locally owned and operated company that describes itself as the local authority on the Gateway City. The company's LinkedIn profile lists 11 to 50 employees and specializations in print media, digital media, events, and custom publishing, with paid, targeted circulation and a readership the company characterizes as educated and affluent.

The defining figure of the magazine's modern era was Ray Hartmann, who founded The Riverfront Times in 1977 and acquired St. Louis Magazine in 1994. Hartmann, a longtime civic figure — speechwriter, author, 37-year panelist on Nine PBS's public-affairs program Donnybrook, and a candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives — oversaw the magazine's revitalization for nearly a quarter of a century, serving as its columnist and publisher. The St. Louis Board of Aldermen honored him after his death on April 23, 2026, at age 73, with a resolution celebrating his legacy as a St. Louis media icon and crediting him with the magazine's resurrection. Day-to-day editorial leadership has more recently rested with editor Jarrett Medlin and the magazine's art and business staff, including art director Emily Cramsey and deputy art director Lindsay Timme.

Editorial approach

The magazine positions itself as an insider's guide written with sophistication and discernment. Its own description promises readers "revealing profiles, discerning dining and cultural guides, in-depth features, informed commentary, and authoritative best-of lists." The editorial mix balances service journalism — where to eat, what to see, how to navigate the city — with longer narrative journalism about St. Louis people and institutions, plus commentary on the civic questions facing the region.

Stylistically it follows the classic city-magazine formula: glossy, design-forward, and rooted in local expertise. Its food coverage leans on knowledgeable restaurant criticism and comprehensive dining guides; its culture coverage spans theater, music, dance, and visual art across the metro area; and its features regularly take the measure of the city's neighborhoods, history, and public life. Because the magazine is locally owned, it has consistently framed itself as a civic institution in its own right — a chronicler of St. Louis by St. Louisans, with deep ties to the region's nonprofit, business, and cultural communities.

Coverage and regular sections

Monthly issues cover a broad waterfront of local life: restaurant openings and reviews, chef profiles, neighborhood guides, home and design, health and wellness, arts and entertainment listings, and coverage of local history. The magazine publishes authoritative best-of lists that function as annual reference points for the region, and its features have taken on subjects ranging from the city's architectural heritage to the figures shaping its present and future.

The magazine's writers include veteran local journalists and cultural critics, and its pages have historically given space to essayists and columnists with strong regional voices — among them Harper Barnes, who continued contributing as a movie columnist after stepping down as editor. Special editions punctuate the year: the September A-List issue, annual dining and restaurant guides, and seasonal packages on events, travel, and entertaining. The magazine's digital products extend this coverage daily, with the website publishing news, guides, and event coverage between monthly print issues.

The A-List Readers' Choice Awards

The magazine's signature franchise is the A-List, its annual Readers' Choice Awards — an annual tribute to the region's finest that has become a coveted honor for St. Louis businesses and institutions. Each year readers nominate their favorites across more than 200 categories — from barbecue restaurants, pizza, and happy hours to outdoor outfitters, dance companies, veterinarians, and senior-living providers — with the top nominees advancing to a public voting round. In one recent cycle the magazine reported more than 90,000 nominations and 450,000 votes cast, and a more recent edition drew upwards of 36,000 community votes, according to participating businesses.

The A-List combines readers' choice voting with editors' choice honors, recognizing both popular favorites and creative collaborations the editors deem noteworthy — such as a 2025 editors' choice award to Saint Louis Dance Theatre for its partnership with Jazz St. Louis. Winners are announced in the summer and celebrated in the September A-List edition of the magazine, and the program culminates in an awards presentation that functions as a major civic gathering. For the city's restaurants, retailers, arts organizations, and service providers, an A-List win — or even a finalist nod — carries real commercial weight, and businesses across the metro promote their wins for years afterward.

Events and custom publishing

Events are a significant part of the magazine's business. SLM Media Group lists events among its core specializations alongside print and digital media, and the A-List awards presentation is the centerpiece of a broader calendar of reader-facing gatherings, dining events, and celebrations tied to its editorial franchises. The company's events connect the magazine's editorial authority with its advertising community, bringing together readers and the businesses they voted for in its awards.

The company also produces custom publishing work, creating publications for clients that draw on its editorial and design capabilities. Together, the magazine, its website, its events, and its custom work form an integrated local-media business built around one core asset: a desirable, engaged audience within the St. Louis metropolitan area that advertisers and sponsors want to reach.

Readership and circulation

The magazine's reference listings put its total circulation at 45,405 as of 2017. Its publisher describes the audience as an educated and affluent readership within the St. Louis metropolitan area, built through paid, targeted circulation — the classic city-magazine model of controlled, demographically desirable distribution rather than mass newsstand reach.

The brand's digital reach extends well beyond the print run. The website, stlmag.com, serves readers daily with current guides and news, and the A-List voting program alone draws hundreds of thousands of interactions each year, giving the magazine a civic footprint far larger than its subscriber base. In a mid-sized metro market where the daily newspaper has contracted, the magazine has positioned itself as one of the remaining print institutions with genuine citywide presence and advertising scale.

Print edition and distribution

St. Louis Magazine publishes monthly in print, in full color on glossy stock, and is distributed across the St. Louis metropolitan area — in St. Louis city and county, the surrounding Missouri counties, and the Illinois Metro East. It is sold on newsstands and available by subscription, with controlled circulation targeted at the region's upscale households.

The magazine carries the ISSN 0272-1279. Its print editions include the standard monthly issues plus the special annual packages, most notably the September A-List edition, which local businesses display and promote as a year-round credential. Design has long been a calling card: the company's listings name an art director and deputy art director, reflecting the magazine's investment in visual presentation as a core part of its city-guide identity.

Digital presence

The magazine's website, stlmag.com, is its daily publishing arm — carrying news, dining guides, event listings, and A-List voting and results alongside the print magazine's features. The tagline that anchors the brand's social presence is simple: "We connect you to St. Louis." The site hosts the magazine's signature best-of content in searchable form, making its dining guides and neighborhood coverage useful year-round rather than only on the newsstand cycle.

The magazine maintains an active social media presence to distribute stories, promote events, and run its awards programs, and its LinkedIn presence — with more than 8,000 followers — reflects its standing in the regional business community. The website also carries the company's advertising information and job postings, functioning as the commercial front door for SLM Media Group's print, digital, and events business.

Recognition and standing

St. Louis Magazine describes itself as an award-winning publication, and its standing in the region is reflected less in national prizes than in the civic weight its franchises carry: hundreds of local businesses cite A-List wins and finalist placements in their marketing, and the magazine's editors' picks are treated as meaningful endorsements across the metro area. Its longevity — more than five decades under successive titles — makes it one of the oldest continuously published city magazines in the Midwest.

The April 2026 city resolution honoring Ray Hartmann underscored how the magazine is woven into St. Louis's civic fabric: it remembered Hartmann not only as the founder of The Riverfront Times and a Donnybrook fixture but as the publisher who oversaw St. Louis Magazine's resurrection and revitalization for nearly a quarter of a century. For a city that takes its institutions personally, the magazine's endurance — through ownership changes, media-industry upheaval, and the loss of its longtime publisher — is itself part of the story.

Challenges and outlook

Like every print publication, St. Louis Magazine operates in a media economy transformed by digital platforms and the contraction of local advertising. Its response has been diversification: a daily website, a signature awards franchise that generates both engagement and sponsorship revenue, reader events, and custom publishing — a mix designed to make the business less dependent on print advertising alone.

The passing of longtime publisher Ray Hartmann in April 2026 marks a generational transition for the company, and the open question is how SLM Media Group evolves its flagship title in its next chapter. What the magazine retains is rare in mid-market local media: a locally owned structure, a demonstrably engaged regional audience, a franchise — the A-List — that the city's businesses and readers actively participate in, and more than fifty years of continuous publication under its various names. For St. Louisans, the magazine remains what its publisher has always claimed it to be: the smart, sophisticated guide to their city, updated monthly and daily at stlmag.com.