January 14, 2008

From TheKCGuy

On my way to the 7th Street Casino recently, I needed a spot to wet my whistle. I'm not an expert of Kansas City, Kansas, so I was a little out of my element. Fortunately, I had with me on of my cohorts who is both somewhat familiar with The Dot and who is completely willing to walk into any old bar and order a bottle of beer. Just a mile or so South of the casino on 7th, we located Johnnie's, which was vaguely familiar to my buddy. The sign said that it had been around since 1934, and surely no bad place could last over 70 years, we thought, so we slipped inside.

I was relieved to find a perfectly normal bar, with friendly patrons and a cute, friendly bartender to help us out. (Hi, Tammy!). I was rather impressed with the decor in Johnnie's. I guess that's what you get when you've been collecting bar swag since prohibition. In addition to the working scoreboard, neon Chief's helmet, and Muehlebach beer sign, Johnnie's sports an ample collection of great TV's, presumably in case there's a game on. Unfortunately, I guess we were there on "Celebrity Apprentice" night. The Jukebox was loud enough, though, to prevent me from getting interested in whomever The Donald was firing.

We ordered a few bottles of Bud Light and headed for the pool table in the vacant back room. The table was missing the "2" ball, there was no chalk for the tips crooked cues, and the video "strip poker" game nearby was a little distracting. All in all, it was the perfect place to waste an hour playing pool. If you're ever in that neck of the woods and need a friendly place to stop in for a bottle of beer, you could do a lot worse than Johnnie's.

Oh yeah, Josh. I'm sure you forgot, so you were planning on betting on Fidel Castro in the deadpool. He's a lock.

Weekend in Review

This week in Kansas City

• Free family Science City night tonigh 6:30 p.m. - 9:00 p.m.
• Discussion of Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman: Adventures of a Curious Character at the Linda Hall Library tonight