The Big Chill continued from page 10 playoffs. The garage-style front windows opened out onto Grand, giving way to a view of the jazz murals in the Power & Light District and, above them, atop the Hotel President, the letters PRESIDENT, spelled out like downtown KC’s version of the Hollywood sign.
40.2˚
THE RIOT ROOM
4048 Broadway 9:45 p.m. Wednesday Beer: Santa Fe Happy Camper IPA
Beer culture has reached even scuzzy music venues, at least in the case of Westport’s Riot Room, which now offers some 50 beers on tap. Sometimes the breadth of the selection intimidates more than it encourages. When we visited recently to see Ra Ra Riot, a bartender with a gauge piercing pointed at us. We froze up, then pointed at the coolest-looking tap: a Santa Fe Happy Camper IPA. A very excited young woman pushed her way toward the stage, spilling perhaps a fifth of the contents of her beverage on our shirts. It was muggy in the room, and the spill made it appear as though we had some strange disease that causes you to sweat from an unusual part of your back. We watched the show from a bench near the merch table, keeping our back hidden from view.
THE OTHER PLACE
7324 West 80th Street Overland Park 10:25 p.m. Saturday Beer: Coors Light
40.2˚
Picture a medium-divey bar that’s roomy enough to fit most of the people you went to high school with. Now picture most of the people you went to high school with in that bar. They dress rather as you recall, though time has been a little cruel to physical proportions. Karaoke tracks, pulsing from speakers in the back and waiting for a singer, threaten something crueler still. Would you drink at the bar you have just mentally conjured? And if you had to, wouldn’t you just buy a Coors Light and take a polite sip (and its temperature) and then get the fuck out of there?
DAVE’S STAGECOACH INN 316 Westport Road 6 p.m. Saturday Beer: Boulevard Wheat
40.1˚
Behind the bar, T-shirts for sale (on the front: “Dave’s Stagecoach Inn”; on the back: “Drowning your sorrows in beer for 60 years”) hung and swayed in a breeze that swept in through the front door. The descending sun cast an orange hue through the windows. Bad music — angry butt-rock, Daughtry maybe — blasted from the Internet jukebox. The old jukebox, with its mix CDs and Tom Waits and Replacements songs, has been gone more than two years now, though the pang of its 12
the pitch
M AY 3 0 - J u n e 5 , 2 0 1 3
absence persists. A Pale Ale was ordered, a Wheat received. We drank it quietly, watched Harry Potter 6 on mute, stared at Keno grids. Somebody new commandeered the jukebox, and out came a Buzzcocks song. You can’t repeat the past? Why, of course you can.
THE WELL
7421 Broadway 4:30 p.m. Saturday Beer: Boulevard 80-Acre
40.1˚
Now that the long winter has ended and an almost equally cold spring has dissipated, competition is hot again for rooftop tables at the Well. The upstairs patio at this Waldo bar often provides a stunning view of the Main Street– line MAX buses as they idle and the drivers take well-deserved breaks. If you don’t mind talking over the sound of bus engines, this a good place to start some day drinking before migrating to Waldo’s other watering holes.
BOBBY BAKER’S LOUNGE 7418 Wornall 5:15 p.m. Saturday Beer: Boulevard Pale Ale
38.8˚
Watch your step when leaving this Waldo bar, especially if you’re on a walker. An old man leaving this long, narrow bar on a Saturday afternoon had himself a mishap, taking a spill and knocking his head. A helpful bartender got the downed fellow to his car before returning to his watch over this popular lounge. In the low light here, a small crowd can make the place seem packed, especially when dart throwers in the back are taking up most of the wiggle room.
BURG AND BARREL 7042 West 76th Street Overland Park 8:35 p.m. Saturday Beer: Odell IPA
38.8˚
The menu is simple, the tight beer list assembled with caution but with obvious intelligence. (Burg and Barrel opened this past spring.) Really, there should be more people here than the handful now dotting the wide space. But the people who are here when we arrive are young and happy, and they stay even after we’ve eaten and drunk, and they look like people we’ll see again whenever we go back. Which we will, because when you ask the server whether there’s anything new on tap, something not on the printed list, the right answer is “Yes.” Even better: “Yes — we have two new beers.”
SULLY’S
38.4˚
5436 Johnson Drive, Mission 6:50 p.m. Saturday Beer: Free State Brinkley’s Maibock
The refrigerator behind the bar isn’t as white as it used to be. But it still keeps glassware — in this case, two sizes of Mason jar — cold enough that you can carry a beer across the
pitch.com
room in your hot hand without damaging the goods. Not spilling any of your yellow nectar while busting an accidental move to Duran Duran’s “Rio,” part of an improbably solid block of ’80s pop playing at an improbably humane volume … well, that’s just this much harder to do.
BLANC BURGERS + BOTTLES (PLAZA)
4701 Jefferson 3:45 p.m. Tuesday Beer: Boulevard 80-Acre
38.3˚
Get here before quitting time, and this Plaza bar and restaurant can be a pretty empty place. The largely windowless, tucked-away interior and stark white floors, walls and tabletops somehow amplify the lonely feeling. It’s quiet, too. The bar is stocked with a decent selection of beers, all of which feel colder than they are if you’re sitting at the icy, whitewashed bar.
TWIN CITY TAVERN 1815 Westport Road 10 p.m. Saturday Beer: Fat Tire
38.1˚
There’s a special every day at this cozy brick drinking outpost on the state border. But Saturday night’s offering — bottomless boiled or breaded shrimp for $18 — is probably the most popular. Three middle-aged couples are on dates in the wooden booths, scarfing their refilled plates. The bartender is kind. “Want to go again?” she asks, rather than “Have you eaten your loneliness yet?” There’s no shame here.
SWAGGER
8431 Wornall 2:30 p.m. Saturday Beer: Mirror Pond Pale Ale
38.1˚
Ever heard Bad Religion over the sound system at a local bar? Neither had we until visiting Swagger early on a Saturday afternoon. A jovial, loud-talking bartender with a mohawk gets pumped up at the opening chords of “Atomic Garden” and is incredulous when a visitor admits not having seen the SoCal punks putting on a show in Lawrence not long ago. The selection of beer here is among Waldo’s most extensive, and the bartender is more than willing to explain various brews, sometimes in more detail than is actually useful.
WALSH’S CORNER COCKTAILS
304 West 85th Street Time: 2 p.m. Saturday Beer: Natural Light
37.9˚
Walsh’s Corner Cocktails sits, as its name suggests, at the corner of a stealth-bombershaped strip mall at 85th Street and Wornall. The window on the door is the only entrance that daylight finds into the dim tavern. A squared-off bar is set off from an empty dining room where one could easily grab a meal
for less than $10. A limited selection of draft beers here comes in pilsner-style, hourglassshaped glasses. An older crowd watches golf and, mysteriously enough, out-of-market Major League Soccer on television.
THE KEYHOLE
5902 Woodson, Mission 7:45 p.m. Saturday Beer: Boulevard Pale Ale
37.9˚
Our notes say it was a pale ale, but even Boulevard’s least-challenging brew tastes bewilderingly upscale in this holiest of holes in the wall. (A Kansas-blue-law remnant, the members-only Keyhole operates in constant, infectious celebration of its own low barrier to entry.) Surely it was a Miller Lite. How can it be hard to remember at a place with so few taps? Easy: Neil Diamond’s “Sweet Caroline” was battering the air at the moment it was our turn to order, with a table of regulars behind us swatting at the music with their own shoutedalong version of the chorus. The lone bartender — pretty, attentive, bright-faced — was unfazed, of course. She made patient eye contact, and this hectic-looking little room suddenly felt like an efficiently run shot-and-a-beer oasis.
CHARLIE HOOPER’S BROOKSIDE BAR & GRILLE 12 West 63rd Street 5 p.m. Monday Beer: Boulevard 80-Acre
37.6˚
This odd-smelling Brookside institution usually has a large crowd that cuts from old neighborhood regulars, businesspeople and the occasional group of Rockhurst or University of Missouri–Kansas City students. On this particular Monday, even a cheap deal on burgers during happy hour hasn’t filled the place. That only makes it more inviting.
THE POINT
917 West 44th Street 4:30 p.m. Tuesday Beer: Boulevard Pale Ale
37.1˚
The Point is a consistent standby for Westport and Plaza residents looking to avoid the bustle of those entertainment districts. Nestled in a nondescript building, where a somewhat new renovation has shaped up the appeal, the place offers half-dollar wings on Tuesdays. It’s a fi ne inducement to some slow, pre-happy-hour drinking. Fox News on one of the TVs, however, is kind of a drag.
BEER KITCHEN
37.1˚
435 Westport Road 5:05 p.m. Wednesday Beer: Empyrean Brewing Co.’s Carpe Brewem For upscale after-work brews and appetizers, Beer Kitchen is a prime Westport spot. But a tanned Aaron Eckhart look-alike, with shaggy sand-colored hair, is here to work. He’s in a Cheetos-orange performance polo, telling his