Tabulating the ‘Best of 2026’ nominations and fact checking our readers re: ladders [Member Newsletter Extract]

Art by Teddy Rosen

Do you want intimate, behind-the-scenes stories of our process, adventures, and general parasocial relationships? Become a supporting member of The Pitch and get our weekly internal newsletter as a silly little perk, with dispatches from the edge and bonus stories. Today, our President/COO gives a peek behind the curtain of his life during BEST OF 2026 nomination round tabulation, and what winds up on the cutting room floor.

Andrew Miller, President/COO:

Normally, I’d be at recordBar tonight, absorbing the high-viscosity swamp-sludge sounds of the New Orleans band Crowbar. I’ve seen them a few times, at now-defunct venues like El Torreon and Aftershock, and there’s nothing quite like the humid heft of their dense riffs.

But the show sold out almost immediately, due to new fans finding the group on TikTok and making memes about its uniquely weighty tones. (Around the time of Spotify Wrapped diagnosing “listening age,” I saw comments along the lines of “I’ve been playing a lot of Crowbar; my listening weight is three tons.”) I learned about Crowbar through Beavis and Butt-Head (“This is the kind of music you have on a workout tape if you’re skinny, and you wanna get fat”), so it’s heartening to see young people still discovering heavy music through comedy.

Speaking of plodding slogs, I’m about halfway through the 70-hour process of auditing the 38,000+ submissions from The Pitch’s Best of KC Nomination Round, which concluded on 3/31. There have been many mentions over the years about the multiple spellings of Meshuggah Bagels (there were 29 this year), but that’s a relatively easy fix: You just click a checkmark next to each of them and merge them with the correct entry.

The more time-consuming corrections occur when someone votes for a favorite bar (perhaps enjoying its offerings at the time) in many categories, including some that aren’t necessarily applicable. If you’re written in for “Best Rooftop Bar” but you’re a one-story establishment and your patrons would have to supply their own ladders – sorry, ineligible.

Similarly well-intentioned are the occasional nominations of physicians/tattoo artists/insurance agents/jazz musicians who have retired; I get that the pleasant memories are real and lasting and not everyone is doing fact-checking research before Best of KC nominations (or voting of any kind), but this contest is reserved for the actively practicing.

But even though I’m seeing the ballot forms imprinted behind my closed eyelids like shapes after an all-night Tetris marathon, I’m still excited to go through the nominations and find out from our readers what’s new, what’s underrated, what’s overlooked. We have our strongest field of Best New Bar and Best New Restaurant candidates in many years. (The Peanut, as a 92-year-old establishment, doesn’t qualify, but I understand the enthusiasm of the person who wrote them in; maybe it was their first time there, and it’s new to them!)

Before seeing it as a nomination, I’d never heard of Happy Rock Park in Gladstone. Looks like it’s a neighborhood favorite. Maybe I’ll check out the trails some Sunday morning, love the peaceful setting and tell everyone I know, “You’ve gotta get out there!” The Pitch’s Best of KC is about BBQ titans and luxurious spas battling it out, sure, but it’s also about crowdsourced under-the-radar recommendations and discovery. Thanks to everyone who contributed and/or looks forward to exploring once we reveal the finalists on April 22.

All I had (I gave),

Andrew Miller