Today is National Tequila Day, a day that I personally like to celebrate with all the enthusiasm of a child at Christmas. As if any of us needed an excuse to have a margarita or eight on a Friday afternoon. In case you need help selecting a destination for post-work imbibing, we have here compiled a short list of some…
The show that spawned the reality-TV phenomenon MTV’s Real World is gearing up for its 31st season. So casting is under way — and the search rolls into town this weekend. “We’re about halfway through the casting process, but that doesn’t affect anyone’s chance of being chosen,” says casting director Themi Chahales. New York, Los Angeles and Miami are among the…
Since building the Vista Hotel in 1985, and then refashioning it into a Marriott Hotel after the Vista failed financially, and since expanding Bartle Hall (for which the city remains about $250 million in debt), Kansas City has seen its status drop as a convention city. But the City Council will make another investment to attempt to reclaim a lofty…
A majority of Americans support raising the minimum wage. Kansas City just passed an increase to $13 an hour by 2020, and a similar ordinance is being reviewed on the other side of Missouri, in St. Louis. This is happening all across the country, of course, as more people understand the inherent injustice of billion-dollar corporations paying full-time workers wages…
Christopher Ciesiel and Cristin Llewellyn have been entertaining guests in their backyard since 2011, when the husband-and-wife team built a bar in their shed and started stocking the booze. In the years since, Ciesiel has slowly built a reputation around his craft cocktails — thanks, in part, to a few off-site gigs and guest-bartending spots at local bars. By the spring…
Colby Garrelts and Megan Garrelts, owners of Bluestem restaurant in Westport, are finally doing the Boulevard beer dinner that they’ve had in mind for a long time. “We’ve done beer dinners at Rye,” chef Colby Garrelts says, naming the couple’s Leawood restaurant. “Over the years, we’ve tried to get something going at Bluestem but couldn’t get it nailed down. This…
On one hand, the penalties for DUIs in Kansas (and Missouri, and America) are somewhat draconian. Have an extra drink or two with dinner, get pulled over by a bored cop in Johnson County, and — after bail, fines, court costs and legal fees — you’re staring down a several-thousand-dollar dent in your bank account, two days in jail and…
Lawrence record label Whatever Forever has a new tape compilation on its way this weekend, so what better way to celebrate than with a festival? Amongst the many local musicians featured on the upcoming comp and as part of the festivities is the one and only Danny Pound. Given his many wonderful projects over the years, it was difficult to…
Van Halen Cricket Wireless Amphitheater, Bonner Springs Wednesday, July 22 “You can’t go wrong with Van Halen and 50,000 watts of power” was the first comment I overheard as I walked into the amphitheater, and it might’ve been the most accurate distillation of a hard rock concert ever uttered. Would that it had been a more accurate description of the…
Back in 1997, while discussing his photography’s evolution from people to landscapes, Emmet Gowin told the art magazine Bomb, “You look at what we do to the earth and you realize that we have written, symbolically, on the ground in such a way that people with feeling and eyes can recognize the destructiveness of the hand that’s doing the writing.”…
Anyone with a special place for the Vesper martini — the one that Bond made famous, with gin, vodka and Kina Lillet — needs to get down to Jax Fish House & Oyster Bar and sip on the Ian Fleming. It’s a pretty straightforward riff on the classic cocktail, head bartender Kenny Cohrs told me on a recent visit: Three-parts…
A Missouri Senate investigation released on Wednesday outlines claims of sexual harassment by a student intern against Missouri Sen. Paul LeVota. The long-awaited investigative report details allegations by a University of Central Missouri intern working in LeVota’s (D-Independence) office, accusing the senator of making sexually charged remarks and later retaliating against her when she rebuffed his advances. LeVota denied her…
Mike Strohm raises the butcher’s knife over his head. When he brings it down in front of him, there’s a sickening crack. He raises his arm and slams the blade down again, then again, and again. The ice block in front of him doesn’t stand a chance. Finally, Strohm — having bashed an impressive cube from the block, then shaved…
Thursday, July 23 Chimay Dorée, Dieu Du Ciel Aphrodite tappings, at Flying Saucer (101 E. 13th St.), 7 p.m. Mother’s flight night, with MILF imperial stout, Doozy double IPA, Making Trouble IPA, Chocolate Thunder nitro porter and Three Blind Mice brown ale, at Barley’s Brewhaus (5031 W. 135th St., Leawood), 4 p.m. Mother’s beer dinner at Genovese (941 Massachusetts,…
%{}% Is pizza better when it comes out of the oven faster? A lot faster? Waldo is about to find out. Pizzeria Locale, which opens today at 11 a.m., at 505 West 75th Street, is the first outpost of the fast-casual pizzeria created by Denver restaurateurs Bobby Stuckey and Lachlan MacKinnon-Patterson in 2011. The new restaurant can serve either a 10-inch…
If you want to try one of Heirloom Bakery & Hearth’s homemade Pop-Tarts, you have to get up early. I stopped by the almost maddeningly popular Brookside café on a recent afternoon hoping to savor one of the fruit-filled pocket pastries, only to stare at an empty platter. An employee told me that the breakfast sweets usually sell out by…
Last month, the lease ended on the 39th Street location of Zebedee’s RPM. The local record store has just announced a brand-new location in a different neighborhood: 1830 Locust Street, in the Crossroads — the former home of Midwestern Musical Co., which closed last July. To celebrate the fresh beginning, Zebedees is also changing its name. It will now be…
Name: Katie Crawford Occupation: I excel at keeping myself occupied. I’m a proofreader at MMGY Global, a professional singer in the Kansas City Chorale, and I’m also the Chorale’s marketing coordinator. If that wasn’t enough, I’m a freelance writer and editor, too. Hometown: Minneapolis Current neighborhood: Southmoreland South. I have a pretty big crush on my next-door neighbor, the Nelson-Atkins…
Amid the dozens of assemblages and paintings by Douglas Schwietert filling a fifth-floor studio in the Hobbs Building, one of the canvases leaning on the floor shows two women sitting under a tree, crying. Dressed in Victorian white dresses, with hairstyles to match, they cover their faces and weep into each other’s arms. A large, stately house is behind them…
It’s good to be the Jackson County executive — as long as you don’t stick around too long. Mike Sanders, who has been executive most of the past decade, presumably knows this well. His two predecessors, Katheryn Shields and Bill Waris, became the subjects of federal probes tied to their work in Jackson County politics. Waris was popped by the…
%{}% The Fringe Festival is always a gamble. Its pay-to-play setup and anything-goes sensibility afford diversity of genre and topic but guarantee nothing. Fringe audiences know this — some shows will disappoint while others will yield rewards. We know, too, that the clock is not our friend. The first night, four shows I’d hoped to see shared a single time…
One Direction When Zayn Malik relinquished his One Direction throne in March, millions of fans worldwide mourned his departure. To their credit, the remaining four members of the English-Irish boy band soldiered on, and Tuesday, the group’s On the Road Again Tour — in support of last year’s Four — stops at Arrowhead Stadium. Though we thought the dated boy-band…
