Irish Pub Makes KC Scoot’s Top 20 Bars
Local Kansas City long-distance walker and blogger, Scoot, has a great post on his top 20 bars.
It’s not limited to Kansas City or the KC area, so you’ll see pubs in Iowa and Minnesota in there, but most of it is local and it comes with many great shots.
Irish interest? One Irish pub in the area makes Scoot’s personal list. Can you guess it?
Not on the list, but would have been, is the now demolished having been destroyed by fire, Kennedy’s on 75th St
O’Malley’s 1842 Irish Pub in Weston, Missouri is the pub on Scoot’s list, placing very high at #4. And frankly it should be on everybody’s list:
to me what really makes this place stand out is the facility itself. Located in a former 19th-century ammunition bunker, a series of tunnels starting in the small surface-building take you to three separate undergound chambers: the main upper-level bar with a stage, a more intimate mid-level chamber featuring a projection screen television, and finally the cavernous lower chamber with an additional stage and elevated seating constructed up each wall. Well worth the drive!
Since I haven’t been in most of the pubs on the list, I can’t quibble with it. And I suspect I wouldn’t anyway. I would be interested though in knowing where Scoot might place Fitz’s Blarney Stone.
Scoot lists The Gaf in Waldo on his list of highly commended pubs that didn’t make the Top 20.
For a few years in Kansas City I regularly visited a lot of great American neighborhood bars, the only requirement being ideally that I wouldn’t have to listen to Irish music in there. And usually you had to keep your voice very low or your accent would create a night impossible to enjoy.
Anyway, since those days, and with only the odd foray nowadays, I’ve been meaning to do a similar list as Scoot has done. It’ll keep for now though.
Hat-Tip: Tony’s Kansas City
See More on Irish Pubs:
• History of a pub, an Irish Pub
• The Closing of Irish Pubs in KC
• KC Visitors Choose Irish Pub as Best KC Nightlife Spot - Huh?
• Where Do You Drink in Dublin?
Eolaí gan Fhéile:
I imagine the Gaf is not on Scooot’s list because the Gaf is very lame.
I have no idea where Scoot got the information about O’Malley’s ever being used as an “ammunition bunker.” (Maybe he got this notion from the proximity of Weston to Fort Leavenworth in Kansas, which I am certain has ammunition bunkers of its own.) Sure, someone may have carried a pistol or two into the place over the years, but ammunition?
Yes, there is local lore about it being used as a stop on the Civil War-era “Underground Railroad” (while there is scant proof). But there is even less proof that anyone ever stored gunpowder there (and frankly this is the first time I’ve heard this particular variation on the local legends).
For the record, the lower chambers in the current location were used as wine vaults and beer kegging cellars for the winery that first occupied it and the later Royal Brewery. The constant 68-degree temperatures were ideal for both functions (and come in handy on a hot summer day as a pub as well).
I think someone was having a serious tug at Scoot’s leg during his visit. That happens alot here.
Also, owners Corey Weinfurt and Mike Coakley provide a very thorough brochure on the history of the place available at the entrance. With nary a mention of the place ever being used as some kind of ammunition dump.
Chris - The Gaf makes Scoot’s next best list, and for a man coming up to his 300th bar that’s still quite high.
Pete - Thanks for that - it was the first I heard of it being an ammunition bunker too so I thought highlighting that might prompt somebody who knows more than I do to come forward.
Goofed a bit on the history of the cellars. Talking with Mike Coakley the other day and he said the only time the cellars were used for wine was when the local winery briefly used them for storage some years back. The cellars were dug as kegging cellars for the Royal Brewery in 1842 and operated as such until after the start of Prohibition.
Co-owner Corey Weinfurt likes to describe the place as the “tallest building in Weston” which is technically true when you consider the complex is five stories tall - with four stories completely underground.