KC Visitors Choose Irish Pub as Best KC Nightlife Spot - Huh?
The KC Visitors Choice Awards have been announced, and among the 19 categories of winners is O’Dowd’s Little Dublin on the Plaza - chosen for Best Nightlife Spot.
Now I like to highlight anything remotely Irish that touches the world of Kansas City, but this is very puzzling. Don’t you need to have some nightlife to be the best nightlife spot?
Because I’m parochial and narrow-minded, I go to O’Dowd’s every week. Admittedly, because I’m not tall enough to high-five Kansas City’s young men, and because the young women will no longer permit me to belly-bump them, I don’t go to O’Dowd’s on a Friday or Saturday night - which is probably when most out of towners who were doing the voting, are there, along with the referred to nightlife I presume.
Still though, I don’t see very much nightlife at all at O’Dowd’s. Maybe one night in ten I might. Maybe. Then again, what consitutes nightlife? Is standing on a deck at 9 o’clock in the evening nightlife? Is eating a meal at 8 o’clock nightlife?
For the last 8 years of living here, and the 2 before of visiting (10 years an authentic Irish pub) have I actually been going to the best place in Kansas City for nightlife? I really hope I haven’t.
On its busiest day of the year - St Patrick’s Day - it even has limited life come night time, because everybody is so wasted by 6 O’clock. And on one of the best evenings at O’Dowd’s in the last year and a bit - the pub closed up hours early to do an annual clean - and threw a large crowd out. I wonder if any of those visitors voted for O’Dowd’s?
Not since the days when Irish man Brendan McGonagle was at the helm has there been any consistent nightlife at O’Dowd’s - and that was six years ago or more. But even then, it was just a pub. A pub. And then it was open late.
Actually “Favorite Nightlife Spot” is the wording used, rather than “Best” and maybe the reason O’Dowd’s got chosen is because of the number 19 category, “Best of Kansas City” of which the Country Club Plaza was voted winner. And of course it was also the winner of the #7 category “Favorite Shopping Center or District”.
So maybe the out-of town-visitors are all over a certain age. Or they’re really fond of whatever live music O’Dowd’s has on a Friday or Saturday. Or they just like a deck, and Kansas City’s other decks don’t hack it.
Still though, even if out-of-town visitors do mostly go to the Plaza, isn’t there anywhere else on the Plaza that has more life that O’Dowd’s? Anywhere? Of course there is - even on school nights I can see that. But maybe the people that go to those places just didn’t get around to voting.
Also of Irish Interest, chosen in category #15 for “Favorite Festival or Special Event” was the Kansas City Irish Fest.
Speaking as somebody who first came to Kansas City as an out-of-town visitor, what’s most striking about the list to me is how much of it is still in that white corridor from downtown to the Plaza.
Other Kansas City Goodness:
• Co-existence: Kansas City & the Lebanon
• How Do You Find America?
• What impresses you most about the United States?
• An Irish Odyssey in Kansas City
Eolaí gan Fhéile:
“Highlight” Irish events in KC, Eolai?
More like inform, promote, and celebrate.
Those lists always seem off to me as if there’s a pay-off or collusion involved.
You ain’t from ’round these parts, are ya Medbh?
It was by a public vote, but then it was also the public that voted A Nation Once Again by the Wolfe Tones as the greatest song ever, ever, anywhere in that major BBC poll, and your neighbour Ronnie O’Brien who would have been the Person of the Century in the Time poll but for interference.
I may criticize KC from time to time, and I do have good times in O’Dowd’s, but the city can - and does - do much much better.
Maybe O’Dowd’s had name recognition points with voters? I have a hard time with the word “Kansas” without pulling my shoulders up, although I know you’re on the more reasonable Missouri side.
It was a culture mired in religiously authorized small-mindedness and it rewarded mediocrity.
My three lasting memories:
jeebus, brow-beating about me not having children, and dealing with dolts who thought they were academics.
4 unpleasant years.
You owe O’Dowd’s a big apology, and I’d suggest a round of Ireland’s finest stout to everyone who is there. They do, in fact, have music every night. Perhaps you’re going to bed too early!
Dan, I like O’Dowds. That’s why I go there on average twice a week. I go to listen to live music, and I know that they have it on the other nights also.
Maybe I do go to bed too early - and you are the first to ever suggest that to me - but if I do it’s still way after when O’Dowd’s closes. I am often the last person to leave O’Dowd’s.
Sadly on some nights that I’ve been to O’Dowds in the last year there have been only a handful of people there. On the assumption that they really would all prefer stout to anything else (they wouldn’t - I’ve been there a lot and I know) that’s a horribly cheap round for an entire pub!
It’s the guy who does the band bookings fault. Other than Bob Reeder, Eddie Delahunt, and Flannigin’s Right Hook, who are all great, there is no other Irish music. An Irish pub with hardly and Irish music (even this past St. Pat’s day) so sad. I was there three times and that was enough for me. It’s worth the drive to O’Malley’s in Weston or Marfield’s in Leavenworth.
Just to note that Dan misread my post, which is easy to do as I am being somewhat facetious in it.
Still though, he reckons he owes me a round. I’ll take a gallon please Dan. An imperial gallon.
A gallon?! An imperial gallon?!
I don’t see as how I’ve done you that much harm - nobody pays attention to my rantings, anyhow.
All the same, I’ll cheerfully buy you 8 pints some night when we can find a seat at O’Dowd’s . . .