Those Were the Days, My Friends
The venerable "Golden Ox" in KC's West Bottoms has been serving customers for five decades--shy a recent brief closing.
Thirty years ago . . . OK, more than thirty years ago . . .
Four of us were sitting in Italian Gardens before some dance at Shawnee Mission North High School. Downtown was a slightly exotic but not uncommon destination then, and this restaurant was known for its good food that was different--we Kansas suburban kids didn't know many Italian restaurants. Our parents probably knew Jennie's at 5th and Cherry (since 1938); Cascone's on North Oak (since 1954); V's on East 40 Highway (for 40 years). But we didn't.
So there we were, eating, laughing, all dressed up. I was wearing a midnight blue spaghetti-strapped (how appropriate) short "formal" and all of us, I remember clearly, looked quite elegant. A slightly stooped, slightly round, bald older gentleman (of course, he could have been only 50) with dark eyebrows came and talked to us for a few moments. When the bill came, the waitress told us that Mr.--had paid for us. Astounded, we asked why. "I dunno," she said. "He must have liked you."
Yep, in 1973, Kansas City, downtown or not, was a different place. Eating out was more of an adventure. Even the smaller trips--like traipsing all the way over to Troost and the Country Club Dairy for the best hot fudge sundae ever (even better than Allen's Drive-In) was an event. Ingram's 30th made me think about restaurants that are still here in the same location, still owned by the same folks, and still good. There are fewer than one might imagine.
In a 1980 cookbook called Dining In--In Kansas City by Boots Mathews and James Rieger, Henry Bloch wrote the forward saying, "…there is something very special about the pleasure I find dining in Kansas City--and, to my way of thinking, nothing else compares to the best we offer here." The book gives recipes from 21 restaurants, several of which old-timers still mourn. Those include La Bonne Auberge, Nabil's, La Méditerranée, The Prospect, the Alameda Plaza Roof, the aforementioned Jennie's, Costello's Greenhouse. Others have radically changed or moved--Bristol Bar & Grill, Harry Starker's, Houlihan's Old Place.
That book included a few that met my criteria--the Plaza III (OK, it's changed hands), the Savoy Grill, the American (well, established in 1974), Stephenson's, Stroud's, Italian Gardens (just recently departed). So then, semi-intrigued, I went to the 1973 phone book. If you've not looked at an old phone book lately, I have to tell you it's interesting reading. (For one thing, the print is legible.)
There were some stand-by's which still stand: the Golden Ox, except you could listen to your dinner moo; the Hereford House whose ad shouted, "Adventure! … and it happens every night except Sunday"; the (continental) Plaza III, "K.C.'s most popular restaurant" (their words); Jess and Jim's on 135th and Locust in Martin City.
But many others have departed for that great bistro in the sky--Jimmy and Mary's Steakhouse, Putsch's five restaurants; Gaetano's with its "20 years of elegant dining" on 8th Street; the three Forum cafeterias; Le Chateaubriand in Brookside; Tour d'Argent on top of Commerce Bank; the Black Angus on Troost. The Majestic Steakhouse was on 31st Street and the Wishbone, with its fried chicken dinners, perched elegantly on the hill at 45th and Main. Bretton's downtown was a mainstay--it was there I discovered that my father, distinct and dapper in my eyes, looked just like a lot of other guys, such was the equalizing power of a dark suit, white shirt and receding hairline.
In 1973, there were 24 Smak's with their 19 cent hamburgers, compared to 20 McDonalds, 17 Kentucky Fried Chickens, 12 Pizza Huts, 11 Waid's, 4 Sidney's, 5 Taco Bells, 3 each of Hardee's and Winsteads, and only 2 Burger Kings. But there was a Town Topic downtown, Don Chilito's in Mission, Villa Capri in south Over-land Park…at 81st and Metcalf. What I'm not sure about is what all this means--except that 30 years ago, I'm pretty sure I thought those days would never end.