Archives: August 2015
Another Mission Gateway development plan arrives
New York developer Tom Valenti has sent Mission officials his latest plan for the long-stalled Mission Gateway project. According to the Prairie Village Post, the development still includes a Wal-Mart store, the chain retailer that Valenti once infamously said would be the “rocket fuel” to propel his project into something more than the barren prairie it is now. Valenti plans…
Sutera’s, Poco’s among August’s restaurant closings
%{}% August is never a great month for restaurants, no matter what the circumstances. As the conclusion to summer (or, as Henry Rollins calls it, “the summer’s last messenger of misery”), the hot and heavy month means all kinds of rivals to restaurant business: Kids go back to school, county fairs come, tight budgets (summer vacations can be expensive, you…
Missouri Ethics Commission finds lobbyists likely violated laws buying dinner for conservative lawmakers
Missouri is a great state for hungry lawmakers. Not hungry as in “ambitious” — we mean literally hungry. There’s no cap on the amount of gifts (food, drink, tickets) that lobbyists can buy for lawmakers, in the hopes that their generosity may influence those lawmakers’ votes. That these gifts must be reported to the Missouri Ethics Commission would seem to…
Tori Kelly is at the Midland in October
If you missed Tori Kelly slaying on the VMAs last night, you should probably amend that right away. The 22-year-old California singer-songwriter has recently transformed YouTube fame into a major label deal with Capitol Records a debut full-length, Unbreakable Smile, released in June. Good news for fans of Kelly (and power pop in general): She’s coming to the Midland on Thursday,…
New Music Monday: Watch the (kinda creepy) music video for ‘Clever Work’ by Sie Lieben Maschinen
Steve Tulipana — co-owner of RecordBar and MiniBar, musician about town — has a newish project with his former Season to Risk bandmate Josh Newton called Sie Lieben Maschinen (“she loves machines” in German). You might have missed the duo’s excellent debut record, June Gloom, in January, but you definitely shouldn’t let the music video for “Clever Work” pass you…
New Music Monday: Watch the (kinda creepy) music video for ‘Clever Work’ by Sie Lieben Maschinen
Clever Work – Sie Lieben Maschinen by Pat Vamos from tulipana on Vimeo.
Man Cave Meats feeds you for free tonight at KC Bier Co.
No dinner plans? No worries. Today, from 5 to 8 p.m., Man Cave Craft Meats puts on a free grill-out at the KC Bier Co. in Waldo as it celebrates joining the Kansas City and St. Louis markets. According to a press release, you can find Man Cave maple-syrup brats, pizza brats, beer-bacon-and-cheese brats and habanero-cheddar angus hamburgers at a local…
A cynical effort to exclude a public vote to form a special taxing district blows up in the face of Columbia, Missouri, businesses
%{}% When Kansas City leaders formed a narrowly proscribed transportation-development district in downtown to move a 2-mile streetcar line ahead, the term “gerrymandering” came to mind. Streetcar boosters figured that a citywide vote wouldn’t view a 2-mile rail plan favorably, so a district was formed in an area where it was likely to pass. If anyone thought the process was…
Drink This Now: the Cobbler’s Daughter and Spanish Harlem at República
Unable to resist the call of something shiny and new, I decided a visit to República was in order. The newest Bread & Butter restaurant opened on the Plaza at the beginning of this month, and I felt the promise of delicious drinks when I heard that local barman and consultant Scott Tipton had accepted the position of beverage director…
Sutera’s Restaurant & Bar in Westwood closing Monday
Another restaurant of long standing is closing in Johnson County. Charlie and Sally Sutera, owners of the 11-year-old Sutera’s Restaurant & Bar at 4730 Rainbow, announced this week on the restaurant’s Facebook page that they are closing the venue on Monday, August 31. Sutera’s opened in Westwood in late 2004, while the original family restaurant, Sutera’s Old San Francisco, was…
Head on up to Gladstone tonight for Rollin’ Coal Truck Night and oh no what is ‘rollin’ coal’?
People who don’t believe in climate change are wrong, but not necessarily dumb. (They’re probably dumb.) People who “roll coal” — that’s a different story. “Rolling coal” is one of the dumbest acts yet invented by human beings. In case you’ve not yet come across this deeply American phenomenon, here’s a 50-second video for you: https://www.vocativ.com/embed/89277/ Basically, people rig their…
Throwback Thursday: ‘Band Night’ at Lawrence High School, 25 years ago
Grady Reid sat on this VHS footage from 1990 for years, then edited together four hours into a half-hour documentary. Shot on the evening of January 12, 1990, this footage of two high school bands — Still Thinking and Renegade Blue, in the cafeteria of Lawrence High School — is like a time capsule of the era. Be it the…
Uber’s contract with KCI amended
An amendment in Uber’s contract with the Kansas City Aviation Department, executed this week, means Uber drivers will not have access to the staging lots used by taxi and limo drivers at Kansas City International Airport. They will still be allowed to pick up passengers at KCI, though. Some background: A few weeks ago, Mark VanLoh, head of KC’s Aviation Department,…
Green Room taps Papa Louie’s Bird Lives double IPA, Boulevard beer dinner at Bluestem and more events
THURSDAY, AUGUST 27 Papa Louie’s Bird Lives double IPA tapping, at Green Room Burgers and Beer (4010 Pennsylvania), 5 p.m. Sierra Nevada Nintendo 64 Mario Kart tournament, at Up-Down (101 Southwest Blvd.), 6 p.m. Tappings of Pretty Things Fumapapa and Pretty Things Fringe, at Flying Saucer (101 E. 13th St.), 7 p.m. Blue Moon paint-the-glass night, with local artist Scribe,…
Tim Coppinger, recently busted by the FTC for illegal payday-lending scheme, still belongs to Indian Hills Country Club
The Mission, Kansas, offices of CWB Services were raided by federal agents last September. The owner of that company, Tim Coppinger, was subsequently served with a civil lawsuit from the Federal Trade Commission, accusing him of running an illegal online-payday-lending operation. CWB Services, the feds said, had been deceiving borrowers about the costs of their loans and also depositing money into…
Hearth Bakery in Weston now called — very accurately — Hearth Bread Co.
When Dylan Low opened his first business last month, he called it Hearth Bakery. But he’s already changing the name. “My focus is on bread,” says the 21-year-old graduate of the Napa Valley branch of the Culinary Institute of America. “I’m not a traditional bakery. I don’t sell cookies or pies.” So Low — rhymes with loud — has changed…
Glen Dakan, founder of Pure Pursuit Automotive, talks loving whiskey, being a cabana boy in Vegas and more in The Pitch questionnaire
%{}% Name: Glen Dakan Occupation: Founder of Pure Pursuit Automotive, a boutique sports-car dealership, which recently opened in the Crossroads (1619 Walnut). Twitter handle: @GlenDakan Hometown: Las Vegas, Nevada (Moved 15 times while in the Navy.) Current neighborhood: Brookside (Moved to KC two years ago and not looking back!) What I do: Former Naval aviator turned tech entrepreneur. Gentlemanly interests…
The Pitch fall guide to film
Forget the summer blockbusters. Jurassic World has stomped away. The Terminator was indeed back, but now he’s gone again. We are all dosed to the gills on Marvel. So now comes the last quarter, the season in which prestige and spectacle go together like the lenses in a pair of 3-D glasses. The big-budget stuff is meant to appear more…
The Pitch fall guide to drink
Saturday, September 5 Festival of the Lost Township | 11 a.m.-4 p.m. Crane Brewing Co., E. 62nd St. and Raytown Rd. Wednesday, September 9 Paris of the Plains: USBG industry social | 10 p.m.-2 a.m. Off Key, 510 Westport Rd. Thursday, September 10 Show-Me Sour Boulevard and Side Project release party | 4-7 p.m. Boulevard Brewing Co., 2501 Southwest Blvd….
The Pitch fall guide to fairs, festivals and special events
Friday, September 4 Santa-Cali-Gon Days Festival | Historic Independence Square (between Osage and Memorial Dr., and Truman and Walnut), through September 7 santacaligon.com Kansas City Irish Fest | Crown Center, 2450 Grand, through September 6, kcirishfest.com Saturday, September 5 Kansas City Renaissance Festival | Festival grounds, 628 N. 126th St., Bonner Springs, Saturdays and Sundays (plus Labor and Columbus Days),…
The Pitch fall guide to sports
Friday, September 4 Kansas City Royals vs. Chicago White Sox | 7:10 p.m. Kauffman Stadium, 1 Royal Way, through September 6 Saturday, September 5 Kansas Jayhawks vs. South Dakota State football | 11 a.m. Memorial Stadium, 1101 Maine, Lawrence Kansas State Wildcats vs. South Dakota football | 6:10 p.m. Bill Snyder Family Stadium, 2201 Kimball Ave., Manhattan Missouri Tigers vs….
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