Hamburger Mary’s owners find archaeological discoveries at Woody’s Classic Sports Pub
Jeff Edmondson, the co-owner of the Hamburger Mary’s restaurant in the historic Uptown Theater building, says that when he and his construction crew were renovating their new venue in that 89-year-old building, they didn’t stumble across any interesting relics.
The relic load was a lot more interesting when they began, last month, construction on the interior of 3740 Broadway, a three-story building that has housed quite a few saloons over the years including Kenny’s News Room, the Black & Gold Tavern and, most recently, a punk-rock club called Vandals. In the 1960s, back when this venue was still just called the Newsroom, it was — according to a self-proclaimed “swinger” of that period — the kind of bar that attracted “the upwardly mobile 20-somethings of the 1960s. Too square to be hippies, but too cool to be squares.”
Edmondson, who is opening a new venue — Woody’s Classic Sports Pub — with his partner, Dr. Eric Christensen, is currently in the midst of replacing the tiles in the ground-floor nightclub with assistance from his new general manager, Michelle Wyssman. Yes, it’s the same Michelle Wyssman who was, last January, the bartender and general manager of Vandals (and was trying to buy the club).
“Michelle understands this neighborhood and has great knowledge of the bar business,” Edmondson says. “She’ll be a good fit here.”
Edmondson and his team dismantled the massive wooden bar and found a tiny brass plaque engraved with the following: “Custom designed and built for Houlihan’s Old Place by George Lee Dunn, Dunn’s Custom Interiors, Kansas City, Kansas.”
“All of the bars built for the Houlihan’s restaurants in the Gilbert/Robinson days,” says historian Steve Noll, “were custom-built.”
Other historical finds include a snapshot from New York’s Yankee Stadium taken in the 1940s, a poster from a prize fight held in Municipal Auditorium in 1979, and a sky-blue Smith-Corona electric typewriter.
Edmondson is hoping to have Woody’s Classic Sports Pub — a gay sports bar — open by early summer.
