BBQ is back. Boulevard doesn’t make action figures, but that doesn’t mean they don’t make collectibles. Bourbon Barrel Quad, the latest release in the Smokestack Series, will start appearing on shelves today, and this is one of the local brews that you should be drinking now and cellaring. But you won’t be the only one thinking about doing that, so…
I guess I should start by saying that I’m not from here. You’d figure that out for yourself within moments, but I figured I’d save you the time. I’m from Minneapolis, the land of Prince, the Jayhawks and the Replacements. No, I don’t pronounce it like “Minne-snow-taaaaahhhhh.” No one in Minneapolis really talks like that. (People a few towns outside…
Drive-ins are facing a looming digital threat. Starting next year, Hollywood studios will cease producing 35 mm film prints and convert completely to digital projection. Unless you’re a film geek or you work in or serve the movie industry, this won’t change the moviegoing experience a tremendous amount. But as we noted earlier this month, it’s going to be a…
Ronald Lane Barkley An iconic figure in Kansas City’s restaurant community, former Gilbert/Robinson executive Ron Barkley, passed away on Saturday. Barkley had served as area director and vice president for Gilbert/Robinson when the Kansas City-based restaurant company was in its heyday. He was 73 years old. Barkley became a mentor to many local restaurateurs who started their careers at Gilbert/Robinson,…
Nick Saltmarsh When chef Zoe LeGrece says ‘Go to kale,’ it’s a good thing. An iceberg salad heavy with creamy dressing might be considered “fresh, leafy greens” to some people, but not to chef Zoe LeGrece, who operated one of Kansas City’s first vegetarian restaurants, Zo’s Cafe, from 1984 to 1994 in the neighborhood now known as the Crossroads. “People…
The Kansas City Chiefs are 2-0 heading into Thursday night’s showdown with coach Andy Reid’s old team, the Philadelphia Eagles. But the talk on at least one TV news website this morning isn’t about what happened on the field, but who was in the parking lot. A few fully clothed exotic dancers paid a visit to Arrowhead Stadium’s parking lots….
The Promoting Employment Across Kansas program is a tax-incentive scheme favored by bureaucrats in Topeka for luring Kansas City, Missouri, companies across the state line into Johnson County. PEAK, which allows companies to keep 95 percent of employee withholding taxes, helped grease the rails for AMC Entertainment’s departure from downtown Kansas City to Leawood earlier this year. Several other companies…
In all, five men will do time for their participation in a disturbing sadomasochistic case coming out of Lebanon where a 16-year-old runaway became the object of several peoples’ fringe sexual preferences. Edward Bagley, Sr., ran this troubling show by the moniker “Master Ed.” The Pitch reported Wednesday that he received a 20-year sentence, but not before hearing from his…
Flickr: Aaron Stidwell It’s the Battle of the Brisket this weekend in Mission. Satisfy all your senses with the Mission Arts & Eats Festival. The annual arts festival, food fair and barbecue competition – the Battle of the Brisket – is set for today and tomorrow at the Sylvester Powell Jr. Community Center (6200 Martway, in Mission). Food will be…
Shawn Ratigan spent part of his freedom using his role as a priest in the Catholic Church to help him victimize five young children. Given that he’s 47 years old, his 50-year sentence handed down on Thursday means that he has probably seen the last of life outside the four walls of a prison cell. The disgraced priest has no…
Jaimie Warren The antiques and gee-gaws from Shields Manor Bistro will be auctioned off on Sunday A month ago, restaurateurs Max and DeDe Shields made the decision to officially close their 13-year-old Platte City restaurant, Shields Manor Bistro – the intimate dining spot was located in a 19th-century house – but keep their bed-and-breakfast business (located on the upper floors…
Missouri Valley Special Collections The Donnelly Garment Company was a potent force in American fashion for decades. The New York City Garment District, that legendary swath of Seventh Avenue featured in plays (I Can Get It for You Wholesale) and movies (The Garment Jungle, Klute) was once the center of clothing design and manufacturing in America. But Kansas City had…
If Missouri House Speaker Tim Jones was off somewhere licking his wounds after Wednesday’s veto session for the Missouri General Assembly, he wasn’t showing it Thursday morning. Jones, a Eureka Republican, took to Twitter early Thursday morning to proclaim that the real story coming out of the veto session was that the Legislature managed to override a record number of…
The couch you’ve put off replacing fails to camouflage where you both sit and how often you both sit there, pointed at the TV and not at each other. You beam a silent mental defense at guests when you see them note the faded fabric: We talk, too. It’s not just Law & Order reruns and the NFL and Breaking…
The past few months have felt like a pretty dire spell at the multiplex. It’s getting so you can’t even look forward to hate-watching a blockbuster, let alone find escapist pleasure in seeing the world saved (again) from the latest mass-murdering plasma death ray. A world does get saved in writer, director and star Lake Bell’s smart, satisfying In a…
Drinking Buddies has been available on demand long enough that, by the time I watched a studio-provided DVD, at least one of my friends had already seen the movie. We compared notes and reached immediate, shouting disagreement. “Are you kidding?” This an objection to my defense of Anna Kendrick’s character. “She’s the one who’s dishonest. She’s the bad one.” “She’s…
In some productions, Long Day’s Journey Into Night really can take just about all day. Not the version onstage at Kansas City Actors Theatre. This second in KCAT’s “Classic American Summer,” directed by John Rensenhouse, dispenses Acts 1 and 2 in just an hour before adjourning for intermission. Trimming what many consider Eugene O’Neill’s masterwork (which won a Tony Award…
The Kansas City Repertory Theatre’s world-premiere season opener takes on a formidable task: capturing the passions and politics of one of America’s most iconic performers, the rhapsodic musician, actor and social activist Paul Robeson. Developed with the Tectonic Theatre Project and directed by veteran Moises Kaufman, Daniel Beaty’s one-man The Tallest Tree in the Forest collates a series of short…
