DRINK BEST POWER LOUNGE
2012), it has been embraced as a hangout by wider swaths of the city’s arts scene. Nondubstep DJ nights, the occasional punk show in the upstairs bar, a solid beer selection and a 3 a.m. license: Feels like the old Westport.
Pierpont’s at Union Station 30 West Pershing Road • 816-221-5111 • pierponts.com
If you’re lucky enough to snag a stool at the bar of Pierpont’s around quitting time, you’ll feel a sense of prestige wash over you before you’re halfway through your first $5.25 Manhattan. Listen closely and you might hear the sounds of deals being sealed, startups being launched or partnerships being formed over the clatter of knives scraping plates after $10.95 strips and fi lets. The restaurant’s namesake — railroad magnate and early American financier John Pierpont Morgan — should provide a cue as to how you should dress. Happy-hour pricing runs from open to close, Monday through Friday. The vibe never stays too stuff y, but watch yourself. You never know what corporate pooh-bah is standing behind you.
BEST PLACE TO FEEL FANCY WHILE DRINKING CHEAP BEER
Hi Dive Lounge 1411 West 39th Street • 816-931-5800 hidivelounge.com
Hi Dive Lounge is kind of like a hobo in a tuxedo. As the name suggests, the West 39th Street joint is a classy place (the food doesn’t resemble bar fare in style or price) that serves cans of bottom-shelf beer from a creaky old vending machine. But do you really want to be the person ordering Hamm’s or High Life in a place that serves polenta and $8-a-pint microbrews? At Hi Dive, yes, you do. If the heat isn’t too sweltering, the rollback windows are open. The Royals are on the TVs, and customers are being generous with the jukebox. Neighbors wander by pushing strollers or walking dogs. Nobody cares if you’re drinking piss water. It’s a live-and-let-live joint. The beer is cheap, but it’s the rich life.
BEST PATIO
Harry’s Bar & Tables 501 Westport Road • 816-561-3950
Westport is a great ’hood if you’re looking for a little sweaty grime with your date. It’s where you go for a little cheap-beer-fueled public grinding on your way (fingers crossed) to some private grinding. So it’s a little surprising that nestled amid the Solo cup venues is the city’s classiest patio. Harry’s long, two-story space is the stuff of rom-com
BEST HIDEOUT DURING THE ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE
Twin City Tavern 1815 Westport Road • 816-531-2141 • twincitytavern.com
Nice selection: Hi Dive Lounge location scouts’ wet dreams: wrought-iron tables, lush trees, a bar with wood stools, all in the soft glow of tiny stringed white lights. We don’t know how the smiling, whirling, speed-walking waitresses manage to stay on top of the dozen-plus tables out here, but your drink never stays empty for long in this magical al fresco drinking spot. It also offers a front-row seat behind what feels like a force field, to watch the rowdier Westport foot traffic shuffle past. Chuckle at the tipsy passers-by or settle up, hop the iron fence and join their caravan to a dive.
BEST NEIGHBORHOOD BAR
Johnnie’s on Seventh 55 South Seventh Street, Kansas City, Kansas 913-371-0300
A solid neighborhood bar seems like a simple thing to execute, and yet there are far fewer of them in Kansas City than one might imagine. Generally speaking, such a place requires, in descending order of importance: cheap drinks, friendly bartenders, a pool table, good music, free popcorn, a foosball table. We are also partial to wooden interiors — the older, the better. Johnnie’s on Seventh covers all these bases. It’s a true blue-collar joint, like many old-school KCK bars. But it’s a little more welcoming. For one, there’s a lot of laughter — particularly on Monday nights, when, as part of the local Pro Wrestling Appreciation Society’s weekly meeting, you can catch legends like Ric Flair “wooooo”ing around a ring on the TVs. The old-timers are friendly, the hipsters know their place in the pecking order, and the well whiskey is Old 1889 — our favorite. It’s the type of neighborhood bar where you don’t even have to live nearby to call the place your own.
BEST IRISH PUB
Llywelyn’s Pub 6995 West 151st Street, Overland Park • 913-402-0333
Given the storied history of the Irish in Kansas City, it’s hard to believe that the metro’s most authentic Irish pub is a St. Louis export that lies deep within the recesses of Johnson County. Close to the corner of 151st Street and Metcalf, the century-old church turned craic emporium features an original, imported Brunswick-Balke-Collender bar from the 1880s; church-pew seating; stained-glass windows; and traditional pub fare, including Welsh rarebit, colcannon and lamb sausage bangers. Of course, it’s the consummate place to watch a Premier League match or have $3 happy-hour pints, but the experience is best when the unofficial house band, Flannigan’s Right Hook, is onstage and the energy is burning like a gutful of Powers. It’s loud and a little dank but oh, so Irish.
BEST SANCTUARY
MiniBar 3810 Broadway • 816-326-8281 • minibarkc.com
After a shaky decade, Westport is once again a bright, bustling entertainment district, with new restaurants, bars and shops serving young crowds. We love it. But one drawback to this upswing is that it gets damn crowded in there on the weekends. And some nights, we’re not in the mood to bodycheck the drunken masses while waiting five minutes for another vodka soda. So lately we’ve been hiking a few blocks northeast and posting up at MiniBar. The seediness of its Broadway location is prohibitively scary for the snootier and more suburban slice of the Westport clientele, and after a slowish first year (RecordBar owners Steve Tulipana and Shawn Sherrill opened it in the spring of
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For a couple of years now, the walking dead have staggered and lurched their way into every corner of pop culture, and we’re bored with them. Still, we couldn’t help noticing the other day that if there was one watering hole in the city that would offer some protection from a zombie invasion, it would be the bunkerlike, almost windowless bar at State Line and Westport Road. Here, a screen door inside the main entrance offers a second layer of security. Few windows mean not as many access points for the undead bastards, and the regulars at this bar known for its sturdy solid-wood booths are fiercely loyal, so you know they’d stand their ground. Even the concrete, slightly raised back patio has an iron railing and feels like perimeter that’s easy to guard. We just hope the zombies don’t attack this dark, comfy bar during the weekend all-you-can-eat shrimp dinners.
BEST LEARNING-WHILEDRINKING EXPERIENCE
The KU Natural History Museum’s Science on Tap series Free State Brewery • 636 Massachusetts, Lawrence 785-843-4555 • freestatebrewing.com
In 2010, following a long tradition of Café Scientifique, the KU Natural History Museum teamed up with Free State Brewing Co. for Science on Tap and took science off campus and into the more informal setting of downtown Lawrence. Three times a semester — and twice in the summer — speakers from KU, KU Medical Center and sometimes Kansas State offer their expertise in Free State’s beer hall. “We have had everyone from paleontologists, herpetologists and entomologists to experts in water levels in Kansas, physics, social media, climate change, science fiction, social justice, and even sex and relationships,” says Jen Humphrey, the museum’s communications director. With lectures like “100 Years of Ecological Change in Central Mexico” and “The Role of the Gut Microbiome in Alcoholic Liver Disease,” you can easily expand your repertoire of barstool knowledge for only the price of a pint.
best of kansas city 2013
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