Konrad’s Kitchen & Tap House in Lee’s Summit is one of a kind

Don’t confuse Konrad’s Kitchen & Tap House, the two-year-old saloon and restaurant in downtown Lee’s Summit, with the slightly older Conrad’s Restaurant & Alehouse in Liberty. They only sound alike.

Joe and Julie Kemna, the owners of Konrad’s Kitchen & Tap House, overhauled the former Jerry’s Bait Shop at 302 S.W. Main in the heart of downtown Lee’s Summit into a family-friendly sports bar, serving uncomplicated dishes (pizza, burgers, fried pork tenderloin sandwiches, a steak, a Bavarian sausage plate) and featuring live music three nights a week.

Joe Kemna, 33, may be one of the most hands-on restaurateurs in the metro: If he’s not seating guests, busing tables, delivering food or bartending, he’s in the kitchen at least two nights a week — cooking. Before the restaurant even opened to the public, he was on his hands and knees refinishing the wood floors in the bar and dining room.

“For six days, I was sanding the floors from 8 a.m. to midnight,” Kemna says. “It was grueling, but I’m picky about floors.”

He’s picky about food, too. Because Jerry’s Bait Shop’s signature dish was pizza, Joe Kemna kept it on the Konrad’s menu, but he’s doing it his way.

“I tweaked the recipe of the pizza dough slightly,” Kemna says. “Jerry’s Bait Shop used a quick-rising bread dough. Ours is more complex and proofs at different times over 12 hours. And our menu is completely different.”

The menu reflects Kemna’s German heritage (Joe Kemna named the venue for his late German-born grandfather, Konrad Kemna, a noted cook who worked for Keebler bakeries in his day) with an appetizer of puffy hot pretzels that he bakes in the pizza oven and serves with house-made spinach dip or hot, shiny (but prefabricated) beer cheese. There’s also an entree of grilled Bavarian sausages sided with a kraut made with fresh apples and pickled cabbage. A Cuban sandwich — with spicy stone-ground mustard instead of the yellow variety — pays homage to the two winters that Joe and Julie lived in Key West, Florida.

The salty comfort foods encourage patrons to drink more, and Kemna offers 19 beers on tap, ranging from Guinness, Bud Light and Miller Light to local and regional brews like those produced by Boulevard Beer, Cinder Block, Tallgrass, Martin City Brewing Co., and KC Bier Co. 

Joe Kemna says he’ll be introducing a new food menu soon, keeping the top sellers — hand-pounded pork tenderloin sandwiches and hand-cut fries — and winnowing some lighter-selling dishes from the menu. “We’ve been operating with one all-day menu but adding a table-top lunch menu. We’re also creating culinary themes to go with some of our music nights. If we have a Friday reggae night, for example, we’ll offer dishes like jerk chicken tacos with mango salsa.”

Thursday nights are always acoustic nights at Konrad’s, and Fridays range from bluegrass to blues, reggae to jazz. “Saturday nights, we offer a six-piece cover band,” Kemna says. 

“We’ve been busy right off the bat,” Kemna says. “We’ve made our weekly, monthly and quarterly goals since we’ve opened.”