WJ McBride’s Irish Pub in KCK Closes
It’s a big breaking Irish story. Word is filtering through that WJ McBride’s Irish Pub & Restaurant in KCK, over there by Cabellas’, the Speedway, Nebraska Furniture Mart, and whatever makes up Village West, is closing tonight at midnight, Feb 28, 2007.
As I said when the Glengarry Bhoys gig was scheduled for WJ McBride’s Irish Pub - you better hope McBride’s is still open in March. Well, it won’t be.
With performers Bob Reeder and Eddie Delahunt both ending regular weekly slots in McBride’s last year, the closing of McBride’s is sadly not a great surprise.
This is a great loss to the Irish world in the KC region. Probably the best looking of all the Irish-jigsaw pubs assembled in Kansas City from Irish-constructed parts (with the other McBride’s and the O’Dowds), ultimately the competition from so many restaurants out there at the Legends didn’t make life easier.
But maybe it isn’t a great loss. In the sense that if not a great number of people were going there, how can a great number of people miss it?
Personally, other restaurants notwithstanding, I think it’s a failed business model for KC, that Kansas City isn’t able to sustain “an Irish pub”, supposedly authentic.
I don’t mean the great Irish-American neighbourhood bars like Kelly’s of Wesport, and Fitz’s Blarney Stone; I mean the super ‘authentic’ Irish pubs which seek a more upmarket customer base that they can charge more upmarket prices to.
The first WJ McBride’s, the one in Overland Park, didn’t last very long, nor did it survive its re-invention. We’ll see what happens when it becomes a Mickey’s. And the plans for it to become a Mickey’s have fallen through. Molloy’s was a brave attempt at a homegrown version, ironically by an actual Irish man, but beyond special occasions the numbers were never there.
O’Dowd’s on the Plaza is a success despite being an Irish pub, not because of it. It’s the huge crowds of Fridays and Saturdays, with live music bearing no relation to anything Irish, that keeps the pub open for those of us who go there on school nights to see live Irish music.
As for a Claddagh Irish pub opening in Johnson County, I’ve stopped paying attention myself to talk of it anymore. Does anybody believe that will ever happen?
And how is The Gaf doing? Well it doesn’t open on Sundays for starters. I used to work in a pub in Dublin. Irish people, mature couples, older people, they drink on Sundays. It’s sociable. Indeed back when Sunday closing in Ireland was at the horribly early 10:00pm, the last hour was the busiest of the week wherever I worked or drank.
I think maybe if people stopped talking about ‘Irish Pubs’, and just opened perfectly good American bars, they can then slowly see if they have the patronage to gradually make it somewhat Irish. Trying to be ‘authentic’, which is impossible anyway, is a disaster.
KC is not New York or Boston. People here behave differently. A themed restaurant does not make a pub Irish. I think Governor Stumpy’s have it right, and Paddy O Quigley’s succeed, and I expect the Greenwood BBQ & Triple P to do well. Because they respect their Irish-American heritage without trying to be something else for which there isn’t really a market, despite all the talk.
As I’ve said many times, if not one pub can afford to pay Setanta the large fees they require to show the major Gaelic games, and Irish soccer and rugby internationals, then it means there simply isn’t enough interest in Irish culture to fill one pub. And that’s just fine, but the 250,000 people, who are going to attend a parade in a couple of weeks, shouldn’t pretend otherwise.
You have to hand it to O’Malley’s in Weston for striving hardest of all to present Irish culture to their patrons whilst keeping their pub unique and special, and in business. No other pub has come close to matching the contribution O’Malley’s makes to the Irish community in the region.
Irish KC wishes the proprietor of WJ McBride’s Irish Pub, Matt Messer, the best for the future and thanks him for providing a great place for Irish people to go in Kansas City. If only they had gone.
See Also:
• Photos of Kennedy’s of 75th Street on Fire
• History of a Pub, an Irish Pub
• Hoffenpurpenburger Day
• Is Kansas City more Irish than the Cayman Islands?
• O’Dowd’s: Ten Years of Being Authentically Irish
Eolaí gan Fhéile:
It may be a failed business model, but not because KC can’t sustain an Irish pub.
The failure, I believe, lies in the fact that it’s difficult (and sometimes impossible) for a locally-owned restaurant to survive when all the neighboring restaurants are big chains & franchises w/ big advertising budgets & name recognition.
When being courted to build near the new Cabella’s, the pub’s owners where told there would be a very limited number of restaurants in the area (about 1/3 what is there now) and that no drive-thrus would be allowed. The developers’ broken promise has become the pub’s demise.
A horrible loss for the couple who owns it, it’s also a loss for those us who enjoyed dining there.
Thanks Kate.
I did also say “ultimately the competition from so many restaurants out there at the Legends didn’t make life easier” and I take your point, but my point was that even in the face of that competition, however unfair, if there is an actual Irish community of hundreds of thousands of people, or even tens of thousands, then there would be a demand for at least one of these pubs to thrive.
Sorry, I think it was poor management in the last 6-8 months that did it in. Saying that , I am still really sad to see it leave. When it first opened we loved going out there at least once a week, for the music and the atmosphere. We still went out there once in awhile, but you could tell they really didn’t care if you came back or not.
Honestly… there were only a handful of regulars - the majority of people who came in on the nights we played were out-of-towners usually there for the Lodge or the Speedway. There were a few loyal followers (and my thanks to them - always,) but certainly not enough to sustain a business or justify a market for Traditional Irish music.
I do agree with the kudos to O’Malley’s. It has always been a great venue for the music.
I ate there several times with my husband, I never went out there for the music because, well, it just didn’t give me the impression of a place to hang out by oneself listening to music.
One thought… I’m partially of Italian heritage, and I certainly appreciate my Italian heritage, but I don’t go out to Italian restaurants very often. Being of Italian hertiage does not mean eating other people’s Italian cooking. Which I guess I figure is relevant because the KCK McBride’s seemed to me more a restaurant than a pub. Of course, not being of Irish Heritage, going out to eat someone else’s Irish cooking makes sense to me. But, then one gets into the note of all the other new restaurants in the area.
It really sucks that mcbrides is closing. i agree that is was the management’s fault.
Just got a craving for WJ McBride’s beer cheese soup. Since we live in California now I googled them to find contact info only to read your articles and discover it’s gone! Damn it all.
We lived in KC the year the KCK location opened and we held quite a few happy hours there. (It was centrally located for our friends.)
On our cross-country drive last year our first stop in Kansas was McBrides for beer cheese soup–even before we checked into our hotel.
We must’ve been the only people going there if it closed after we left. Bummer.
Anyway.
Any advice you can give me for obtaining that soup recipe??
Thanks,
Nissa
PS Your website seems really well informed. Must be a full time job keeping it up. Gotta love a guy who’s passionate about what he does!
Thanks Nissa.
And let me get back to you on that soup!
Hey still like reading your stuff. Alive and well here in Oklahoma City. Doing music food and still having kids in. All the things you thought wouldn’t work. Easy to be a critic. Huh??? Sean Cummings
Great to hear Sean, however I never said those things wouldn’t work for you in Oklahoma.
In the post about your pub I said your quoted descriptions of what pubs in Ireland were about (aren’t about drinking. It’s about eating, hanging out with your friends. You’ll see kids in there having a soda.) didn’t correspond with my experience of pubs here in Ireland.
That’s very different from saying that doing those things in America wouldn’t work. On the contrary I regularly make the point that such success emphasizes their inauthenticity as Irish pubs, that successful “Irish pubs” in America are really restaurants themed as Irish pubs.
And in the post above I also never said those things wouldn’t work for you - as I’m not familiar with the Oklahoma market for things called Irish. What I did say in this post was “I think it’s a failed business model for KC, that Kansas City isn’t able to sustain “an Irish pub”, supposedly authentic.”
It’s no easier to criticize than it is to self-congratulate.