A Stranger in a Strange Land

by Chris Becicka

A Happier Happy Hour
Kansas Citians—and Ingram’s readers—know just where to go to enjoy drinks, appetizers and conversation after work, making the city a happy place indeed.

This is an article of fascinating facts and contradictions. It will also be about food. And drink. And timing. Perhaps of aging.

If you read the Ingram’s marketing materials, and who hasn’t or wouldn’t want to, you quickly learn that our readers eat out nine times a week and spend $200 for dinners (it’s not clear if that’s for one dinner or nine, an extraordinary difference actually) and $75 for lunches. (Same issue.)

Those facts are actually why we have a food column and that is a clear rationale. Our readers can not only read, they eat out. Both good news for me. But wait, there’s more. The average age of Ingram’s readers is 51.2 and nearly 40 percent of them are women. The average household income of Ingram’s readers is $285,937.

So, do you fit any of the above? (Well, I presume at this point you can read.) And if you do, where were you the week I explored happy hours in our happy town?

That was the question two close friends and I were looking to answer at three bars recently. These weren’t just any bars. These were the bars that you, our readers, selected as the three best locations for happy hours in our 2006 “Best of Kansas City” issue.

So there we were, the three of us, exploring the world of our readers. We went to our winners, The Kona Grill, reVerse New American Bistro and Bar, and McCormick and Schmick’s.

Do you recall the “three weird sisters” in Shakespeare’s Macbeth? Granted, they were witches. Or the Stranger in a Strange Land? True, Valentine Michael Smith was raised by Martians. Or even poor, sweet, blond Marilyn Munster in her family of ghouls?

Well, take your pick. There we were, not among our own kind in, definitely, two of three. At Kona by 5:30 p.m. (happy hour started at 3 p.m.—if I could be in a bar by 3 p.m., I’d definitely be happier), we edged up to the bar. We upped the average age, easily, by about 30 years, but it didn’t matter cuz we just didn’t fit in, nor could we hear. Our bartenderess, cute Nikki, admitted to being 30 and she thought a lot of the crowd looked really young to her. Egads. She was very pleasant, brought us three appetizers, of which the calamari with a spicy dip was very good and a vodka tonic, appletini, and diet coke (oh sure, that was mine) and told us weekends were a lot more crowded, younger, louder, but weekdays had rather settled down. Right. It was a Wednesday. But our bill was only $20.83.

We left the land of roving eyes and walked down to reVerse. Quieter, not so crowded, more sophisticated. Little bit older crowd, some laptops, four not-so-young women eating dinner by the door. Here, the ahi tuna tartare was the best, even though by this time I was drinking red wine, not the best combo. You can actually talk here. Our bill was $24.15.

Another night, we stopped at McCormick and Schmick’s. The fish taco was excellent, the calamari light and perfect, the salmon spread tasty, and in the artichoke dip you could taste the artichokes. For $1.95 or $2.95, truly great deals. Drinks are not cheaper there like at Kona or reVerse, and the people are older. Lots of talking and more people eating and the place feels friendly. Fewer “meat market” taints. This is where we felt the most comfortable—perhaps not a great thing if you’re 24 and looking. Our food bill was $9.44 but I won’t tell you the total (we stayed here longer and the house merlot is not all that bad).

But, if you actually do fit the Ingram’s profile, this might be the better choice—and there are lots of other places, too, where you and I would be happy. As Banquo pointed out to Macbeth, the three weird sisters “have show’d some truth.” But truth is relative, truth is perception, and truth is, I’d rather be with my own kind.