Eddie Crane is turning Haus into Ollie’s Local

Eddie Crane is back on Martini Corner, moving into an old Haus and giving it a new name.

Haus, you’ll recall, was Chris Seferyn’s German-influenced gastropub (sausages, beer, sausages, cocktails, sausages) at 3044 Gillham Road. The squat, brick former gym never really got past its looks — a vague resemblance to a bunker — and closed in 2014. Crane — whose past credentials include the nearby Drop as well as Blanc Burgers + Bottles — has gutted the space, built a new bar, reconfigured the patio and updated the kitchen. When the building reopens, in early October, it will be called Ollie’s Local.

Crane and co-owner Vince Rook call Ollie’s “a classic American neighborhood bar.” Crane says he defines such a place in fairly Cheers-like fashion: friendliness, a quality that he says is scarce lately. He tells me that too many of the city’s newer bars are more concerned with fancy drink menus than they are with the customers. “They’re so obsessed with the icing and the sparkles that they forget about the cupcake,” Crane says. “The idea of hospitality has gotten lost over ridiculous details. I’m seeing more places open that care more about what the glassware looks like than what’s in those glasses. You don’t need all those trappings if your focus is on the people coming through the door.

“I’ve told my staff that we’re not here to be the next cool, hot thing,” he adds. “We’re not here for the hipsters but to make our clientele feel comfortable and connected. Like a neighborhood bar in the 1950s and ’60s.” Crane, 38, cites as inspirations local saloons such as Bobby Baker’s Lounge, in Waldo, and the original Ship, back in its original location at 411 East 10th Street. No pretensions — just booze, good food and good service. 

The name of the new bar is meant to evoke a vintage quality. “I want people to walk into this place and feel like it’s been here since the 1950s,” Crane says. But the obvious choice, Eddie’s Place — which several friends suggested — was out. Crane, the father of four youngsters, didn’t want his name on the side of a tavern. “We must have gone through 300 names,” he says.

Who is Ollie? Doesn’t matter. The point, Crane says, is that “everyone knows an Ollie.” He tells me, “We’re not even open yet, and people are telling us that they know Ollie. And maybe they do. He’s becoming a legend before we serve the first drink.”

Or the first plate of food. Crane says Ollie’s is going to serve lunch, dinner and a late-night menu, but the options aren’t fully mapped out yet. He emphasizes that it’s a bar that serves food, not a restaurant with a bar. However you look at it, though, there’s unlikely to be another place serving a $20 bacon double cheeseburger that comes between two BLT sandwiches. Naturally, it’s called the Ollie. Other options sound dainty by comparison: a steak sandwich, baked hand pies, Italian steaks and, for dessert, baked Alaska.

Speaking of nearly forgotten culinary relics, Crane says he plans a punch service. As in beverages ladled from a big bowl.

Alcohol-based punches date back to at least the 17th century, when British sailors brought the idea back from India. Legend insists that punch is the Sanskrit word for five — early boozy punches had only five ingredients. In this country, one thinks of the sweet-tea-and-bourbon punch served in Kentucky during horse-racing season.

At Ollie’s Local, small groups will be encouraged to share a glass bowl of iced punch — rum, whiskey and other liquors — instead of individual cocktails. The punch will be formally presented with a ladle and glasses. “It’s a very social beverage,” Crane says. “And Ollie’s will be a very social scene.”

Also on the social-scene tip: music. Crane remains a member of the KC band Loaded Goat, and he has built a small stage in a corner of the Ollie’s space for, he says, “session performances.” (The inside seats about 105 potential Loaded Goat fans.) “This will not be a live-music venue with regularly scheduled acts,” Crane adds, “although we will be scheduling acts throughout the year. This will be more like watching musicians play in a living-room setting. We’ll have a guitar and a banjo hanging on the wall for spontaneous performances, but only for performers we know can really play. We’re not letting just anybody get up on the stage.”

There will be TVs at Ollie’s, of course, but Crane doesn’t want too many of them and is considering ways to artfully conceal them. That, too, goes back to his idea of friendliness. “There’s an art to conversation that gets lost when people have their eyes glazed to a TV screen,” he says. “Ollie’s is going to be a place where people are going to want to talk to each other.”

And who knows, maybe Ollie — whoever he is — will be around to talk back.