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.

And let me get back to you on that soup!

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!

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.

I do agree with the kudos to O’Malley’s. It has always been a great venue for the music.

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.

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.

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.