Archives: January 2015

Green Room Burgers & Beer’s third-birthday party, Goose Island Bourbon County night, Boulevard Chocolate Ale and more beer events

Thursday, January 29Toccalmatto Salty Angel tap night, at Flying Saucer (101 East 13th Street), 7 p.m. Saturday, January 31KC Bier Co. four-course beer dinner, at Grünauer (101 West 22nd Street), $60, 7 p.m. Sunday, February 1Kansas City Chiefs Super Bowl party (if you beat both teams in the Super Bowl, you win by default), featuring KC barbecue and $3 KC…

Wyrmwood filmmaker Kiah Roache-Turner hates political correctness

The Pitch: Where does Wyrmwood’s idea come from? Roache-Turner: My brother and I grew up watching films like Dawn of the Dead, Mad Max, Evil Dead and Braindead. We knew these films had been made cheaply, and all had this amazingly insane vibe. We’d been waiting for someone to come along and make another kick-arse Aussie post-apocalyptic film, and no…

Plowboys Barbecue downtown location opens tomorrow

Last September, The Pitch reported that competitive barbecue pitmaster Todd Johns was opening a second location of his popular Blue Springs restaurant, Plowboys Barbecue in the Town Center Pavilion building at 1111 Main. At the time, Johns was planning to be open in November 2014. “Well, you know how these things go,” Johns says. “The city takes its time, and…

Blue Grotto has some big changes ahead, including a new name

Fintan Molloy, owner of Brookside’s Blue Grotto, says the seven-year-old restaurant is turning its focus away from pizza. The new menu will emphasize steak, fish and burgers. And a new name is on the horizon: Bia, the Gaelic word for food. Molloy says the transition to the new name will not be immediate. “The Blue Grotto’s primary clientele has been…

Bartender’s Notebook: Erik Mariscal brings a chef’s attitude to his bar at Westport’s Local Pig

By now, any variation of the phrase “fresh, local, seasonal ingredients” has become something of a cliché, even for a cocktail menu. So when Bridger’s Bottle Shop and Preservation Market reopened as the Local Pig in Westport three months ago, it seemed predictable that those words would show up on its new bar menu. But there’s seasonal and then there’s…

Panic Fest 2015 pushes the horror even longer at Screenland Armour

Gore whores and splatter studs, take note: The Screenland Armour’s annual Panic Fest is happening this weekend, and event co-founder Adam Roberts says the lineup is killer. “If you can’t attend the entire fest or a few films each day, cancel your plans or call in to work,” says Roberts, who co-owns Screenland Armour. “We had to spread the schedule…

Food Fight 6 sweetens CCVI’s biggest fundraising night

“God forbid it’s Key limes,” Carter Holton says. “Have you ever tried to juice one of those?” The pastry chef for Sasha’s Baking Co. and the River Club is answering my question with the ironic theatricality familiar to anyone who has talked to him for more than a couple of minutes. On this January morning, he means to entertain not…

Sea bass, chicken and half-pound steak were on the menu at last night’s country club hearing for Missouri lawmakers (paid for by lobbyists)

John Diehl is only a few weeks into his job banging the gavel as Missouri’s new House Speaker, and he’s already having to eat his words. It was last May when Diehl told KTRS that he didn’t care for how lawmakers were holding public hearings away from the Statehouse in Jefferson City to off-site locations where their meals were paid…

Aaron Park, event planner for CancerviveKC, talks Prom-a-Palooza and more in this week’s Pitch questionnaire

Name: Aaron Park Occupation: Event planner for CancerviveKC; detail department supervisor, Northtowne VW Hometown: Kansas City, Missouri Current neighborhood: North Kansas City What I do: With help from the other members of CancerviveKC, I plan fundraising events that impact the lives of local families struggling with cancer. What’s your addiction? Overwhelmingly spicy foods and Rolaids What’s your game? Royals baseball!…

Streetside: Curtain call at Glenwood Arts and Metcalf South

They’re packing up the projectors and the popcorn popper over at the Glenwood Arts. But it’s not all bad news. The owners of that movie theater, Brian and Ben Mossman and Wade Williams, also operate the Rio in Overland Park and a multiplex in Leawood (in the space that was once home to the Ranch Mart cinema), and they’ve already…

A Most Violent Year cheats to tell you about honesty

Lately, I’ve been thinking more about what happens when you watch a movie a second or a third time. What happens when you talk back to it. Sometimes it’s a conversation. Tell me a little more, you ask, and the movie, with some study, reveals something else. Sometimes, what you’re looking at doesn’t yield to questioning, and you second-guess your…

Music Forecast 1.29–2.4: Levi Parham, Jason Eady and Adam Hood, Mallory Knox, and more

Levi Parham It takes almost zero effort to like Levi Parham. So it’s surprising that more people don’t. Then again, the Oklahoma singer-songwriter is a recent addition to the Americana landscape. His home-recorded 2013 debut, An Okie Opera, was a rough-cut romp over grassy plains and along back roads, and it all but disappeared down a commercial country lane. Last…

She’s a Keeper retools its sound with the Westside Royal EP

%{}% The members of local folk-rock band She’s a Keeper are young — drummer Fritz Hutchison is the oldest at 23; guitarist and singer Zac Jurden, guitarist and singer Colin Nelson, and bassist Elliott Phillips are all 22 — but don’t be fooled. They have been playing together in an official capacity since 2010, and Jurden says the musical bond…

Hembree storms out of Quiet Corral with a brash new sound

Hembree’s Isaac Flynn and Garrett Childers might be two of the most approachable guys on the planet. They are so gregarious, in fact, that when we meet on a Tuesday night at the Local Pig in Westport — on the premise of discussing New Oasis, their band’s debut EP — it is nearly impossible to keep the interview on track….

MET’s Mary Stuart examines England’s most notorious cousinly rift

Fans of Good Queen Bess, take note: The play Mary Stuart, onstage at Metropolitan Ensemble Theatre, leans in favor of the titular monarch. An early clue, in addition to the play’s title, is the bagpipe music playing in the background. You needn’t be an expert in Tudor history and its complexities to appreciate this absorbing play about the royal rivalry…

John Kizilarmut Trio, at the Green Lady Lounge

When John Kizilarmut moved to Kansas City last year, he was the drummer with the name you couldn’t pronounce (it’s ki-ZIL-ar-moot). But with a touch both light and nimble, keeping perfect time marked by an easy elegance, he quickly established himself as one of the city’s most in-demand jazz drummers. Kizilarmut brings that same approach to the vibraphone, and that’s…

A Look At Luxury Suites for Upcoming Events at the Sprint Center

The Sprint Center in Kansas City annually pulls in some of the biggest stars in music and entertainment. Whether it’s a current pop icon like Taylor Swift, or a musician who has been around for decades, such as Billy Joel, Kansas City is always a premier stop for touring artists. With so many top performers coming to town, it makes…

Topp’d Pizza owner serves small pizza, but has big plans

There’s a sign on the window at the two-week-old Topp’d Pizza at 3934 Rainbow: “Yes, we are local.” Before putting the sign on the window, the 32-year-old owner, Chad Talbott, was answering a lot of questions from patrons about his fast-casual operation, which prepares both signature and custom-made 9-inch pizza pies in less than five minutes: “People wanted to know…

John Doe dusted off his deep catalog at Knuckleheads last night

The John Doe Band with Jesse Dayton Knuckleheads Saloon Monday, January 26, 2014 Somewhere, someone’s chronicling the epochs and strata of John Doe’s career, carefully cataloging his bands (X, the Knitters, the Flesheaters) and piles of songs — and it might be Doe himself. Last night’s show was like stumbling across an Uncollected Stories collection from a favorite writer, filled…