Call of the Wild
Back in the early 1970s, Jeremiah was a bullfrog (in the inexplicably popular song recorded by Three Dog Night), but Jeremiah Johnson was Robert Redford. Well, in 1972, anyway, when he played the title role in Jeremiah Johnson, about a soldier who fled civilization in order to live a simple life trapping beaver but turned bloodthirsty, fighting a savage vendetta against Crow Indian warriors.
The movie was based on a real-life trapper, Jeremiah “Crow Eater” Johnson, who, according to one report, “had been scalped and left for dead by a Crow war party and after he recovered … hunted down the warriors, killed them and ate part of their livers.”
Liver, I’m happy to report, is not a specialty of Jeremiah Johnson’s, the $3.5 million sports bar and restaurant in Kansas City, North. There are steaks, grilled fish, burgers, and delicious chicken soup, but nothing the real “Crow Eater” might have sampled in his lonely mountain shack. The real Jeremiah, however, isn’t really an issue for the restaurant’s owner, Tom Norsworthy, who didn’t even know the Redford film had been based on an actual historical figure. The woodprint illustration of a nineteenth-century trapper on the restaurant’s menu (and dramatically enlarged in black and white paint on the enclosed dome of the sports bar) isn’t the actual Johnson but a bearded gentleman in a soft-brimmed hat whom Norsworthy discovered in a book of historical portraits. He can’t remember who the man was, not that it matters.
Norsworthy isn’t even a fan of Redford’s Jeremiah Johnson (“It was kind of forgettable”) but watched the film years ago and liked the name. “It had a nice ring to it, so I kept it on the back burner to use for a restaurant someday,” he says. Over the past decade, Norsworthy has expanded the local 54th Street Grill empire (he’s building the seventh of those moderately priced bar-and-grill venues in Grandview), and he says he’s ready to launch a new venture: a place to drink and eat home-style food, but more upscale than the 54th Street Grills and with a menu prepared from scratch. “Only 50 percent of the menu at the 54th Street Grills is made from scratch,” Norsworthy says. “It’s difficult to do.”
Difficult, yes, but a definite drawing card for his new, high-testosterone restaurant, which is dominated by a central atrium-style bar with a 22-foot ceiling and eleven big-screen TVs tuned to major sporting events. The bar isn’t my favorite place to eat (although it’s easier to get a table in that noisy, smoke-filled room than in the two smaller dining areas on either side of it), but I settled for a cozy booth there on my first visit because I was too hungry to wait thirty minutes for a nonsmoking table.
The noise level in this tiled room can seem jarring at first — “It’s like eating in an auditorium or a train station,” my friend Ron said — but our beautiful young server was so unflustered and adorable that we quickly calmed down, even though we could hear only every third or fourth word she said. “Can … I … drink?” she said, flashing a Julia Roberts smile. Then she handed us no fewer than four menus: one for food, the others devoted to beer, margaritas and wine. “I’ll … back,” she said, and vanished.
Ron looked at the assortment of patrons perched at the bar: tanned jocks in polo shirts reading the sports pages or chatting with pretty thirtysomethings squeezed into capris and sequined belts. I wouldn’t call it a pickup bar (at least during the dinner hours), but there was definitely some sexual tension bouncing off the hard surfaces. It reminded me of a line in Jeremiah Johnson, when Will Geer (playing a crusty old trapper) says, “I loves the womens, I surely do. But I swear, a woman’s breast is the hardest rock that the Almighty ever made on this earth.”
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On that note, the restaurant’s pillowy-soft signature biscuits — called “sweet biscuit bread” on the menu — looked more like, well, breasts than like drop biscuits, but they were just as sugary sweet as the more crumbly version at the Bristol, a savvy addition to a menu that has shrewdly borrowed (and, in many instances, improved) culinary ideas from other successful restaurant chains, most brazenly Houston’s. If imitation is the most sincere form of flattery, the big chains should see how the Jeremiah Johnson’s kitchen staff puts a creative spin on even the dullest offerings, such as spinach dip. Instead of the ubiquitous cheesy, green glop, this hot and creamy concoction is rich with melted Parmigiano-Reggiano and finely diced artichokes and comes with thick, warm tortilla chips.
Even better is a duet of two “mini” cheeseburgers called Shorty’s, which I’d imagined would be as tiny and greasy as White Castle sliders. But no, they’re nearly full-sized burgers — thick, juicy and fabulous. And you don’t have to be drunk to enjoy them.
I felt nearly drunk after taking luxurious sips from the fragrant chicken soup, loaded with pieces of rotisserie bird, celery, carrots, and noodles thick as dumplings. But if the soup was a sensual delight, the rest of the dinner was coitus interruptus: The Caesar salad was overdressed with an absurdly oily dressing; and my entrée, Mushroom Madeira Chicken, was a mess of melted Jack cheese and sliced mushrooms blanketing a bland chicken breast. Ron, however, raved about his thick-cut sirloin steak, which really was superbly prepared and richly flavored.
On my second visit (with Joy and Kitty, who wanted to come along after someone told them that the restaurant’s general manager, Jason Norsworthy — Tom’s nephew — was “really cute”), I was tempted to order a steak, but Joy insisted on the hickory-grilled fillet for herself. “You’ll love the ribs,” said our server, Colleen. “Everyone loves them.” Well, I’ve heard that line before (usually about psychotic blind dates). But I took a gamble and hit the jackpot. The ribs, smothered in a mildly sweet barbecue sauce, were so tender, they could be nudged off the bone with the flick of a fork tine. I foolishly ordered just half a slab; I could have eaten several whole ones. But I was already thinking about dessert, and besides, I wound up eating a few chunks of Joy’s gorgeous filet.
Kitty was supposedly on a diet (though she nearly yanked off my arm grabbing for the last bit of spinach dip), so she ordered the hickory-grilled salmon, served with enough steamed broccoli to feed a family of six. The salmon might have done the same trick; it was a hefty fillet, grilled to the lightest crunch on the surface, pink and moist within.
There were only two desserts on the Jeremiah Johnson’s menu, both “made from scratch,” the servers assured us (it’s kind of a mantra here): an apple strudel pie and a slab of Chocolate Caramel Nut Crunch Pie (spelled Carmel on the menu, not that I’m being picky). We chose the latter at skinny Colleen’s insistence. “I love it,” she said with the complete assurance of a size 2. “We’ll share it,” Joy said.
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We noted the neat little touches that accompanied the pie: chilled dessert forks and a cloud of real whipped cream. We did share it, in a manner of speaking: They each got a bite, and I ate the rest.
Oh, there is another Jeremiah Johnson on the horizon: a young sports reporter at TV station WTWO in Terre Haute, Indiana. He’s no Robert Redford, but he is more likely to show up on one of the eleven TV screens at Jeremiah Johnson’s restaurant than the movie star. As for the original Jeremiah’s profession, if there’s any beaver trapping taking place here, it’s strictly at the bar after a few “Let’s Get Dirty” martinis. And no one gets scalped.
