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From the Bar
US Phone numbers are a trip! The 816 got switched on January 1, 1947 — one of the original 86 area codes in North America, the first one assigned to Missouri, and back then it covered the entire western half of the state. Springfield and Joplin got carved off into 417 in 1950. Rural Missouri went to 660 in 1997. Since October 2023, we've shared the territory with a 975 overlay, which is why every local call now takes ten digits and why an 816 number means you mighta been here a while.
A local promoter named Brian "Bizzy" Benton coined 816 Day in 2017 and threw a party at 18th & Vine. Nine years on, it's citywide — Power & Light going eleven to nine, Rieger running noon to eight with $8.16 cocktails and Jamogi & the Jammers in Electric Park, Art in the Loop closing the night outdoors at City Market. Party on 816!
August 16 lands in Leo, and Leo is the only sign in the zodiac ruled by a star instead of a planet. Everybody else gets Mars, Venus, Saturn — rocks and gas. A few notable Leos: Count Basie, August 21 — the man who took the KC sound east and made New York learn it. James Baldwin, August 2. Julia Child, August 15. Hitchcock, August 13, which is today. Coco Chanel, August 19.
But the best one is Louis Armstrong. He spent his whole life telling people he was born on the Fourth of July, 1900 — a beautiful lie, but the records say August 4, 1901. Good to know this weekend, because Lonnie McFadden is running his Armstrong program at the Reno Club. Friday's gone. Saturday's the last seat on it.
Happy Birthday Leos! 🦁
— I’ll see you at the bar ☾
Jay, SecretKC editor
🥃 The Can’t Miss List
Hotel Bar · Evening
Bar Stillwell
Grown-ass bar energy. The best place to begin and end adventures.
Cocktails · Evening
The Monarch Bar
Serious cocktails, serious energy. A clean handoff between dinner and the night.
Cleo Club
Velvet booths above The Rockhill Grille. No food, no pretense
Café · Day or Night
Café Corazón
Indigenous-owned Latin American café. Specialty coffee, yerba mate, empanadas, tamales. Not just some coffee shop. 3 locations.
Clean Cookware for People Who Actually Cook
You've probably seen Made In Cookware® by now. Used in 4,000+ professional kitchens and trusted by millions of home cooks, they also offer one of the largest PFAS-free cookware collections available.
🎉 816 Day· Sunday, August 16
816 Celebration @ J. Rieger & Co. · Sunday / Noon–8 PM
$8.16 cocktails and food throughout the building. Strawberry Swing's vendor market in the Atrium noon to 6, live music in Electric Park — Jamogi & the Jammers 1 to 3, Jass 5 to 7. Free production floor tours, whiskey tastings with a sneak peek at the 2026 Monogram release, bottle engraving by Humble Hands.
→ J. Rieger & Co.
Art in the Loop: 816 Day Performances · Sunday / 6–8 PM
Four KC acts outdoors at City Market — The Royal Chief, The DynamitExperience, BodaciousThang and FK MENACE. Presented with the KC Streetcar Authority. Free.
→ City Market
816 Block Party · Sunday / 11 AM–1 PM
Free block party at Zona Rosa's Central Park — live mural painting, sports team appearances and photo ops, kids activities, and 816 deals at participating stores and restaurants.
→ Zona Rosa
🍸 The Weekend
Jazz @ Noon: Nneoma Lanea · Thursday / 12 PM
Second-Thursday midday programming in the museum's working jazz club. Free, no cover, take a long lunch!
→ The Blue Room
Soul Fundamentals @ The 1909 Club · Thursday / 7 PM
Julian Goff's soul, funk and R&B band on their every-other-Thursday run in Lee's Summit.
→ The 1909 Club
Kate Cosentino, Melina KB, Lombardy · Friday / 7 PM
Three local acts, small room, pop-leaning. Early enough that the rest of the night is still yours.
→ recordBar
Hot Girls Telling Lies · Friday / 8–10 PM
KC Comedy Hub's panel show: comics tell two truths and a lie, the hosts grill them, and when the panel guesses right the room gets Nerf guns. Ticketed, in the Crossroads.
→ Lifted Spirits Distillery
Electric Fridays · Friday / 9 PM
Late DJ night inside the distillery. Restrained enough that you can still hear yourself.
→ J. Rieger & Co.
🥂 Date Nights
Jackie Myers Duo @ Chaz at the Raphael · Thursday / 6–10 PM
Pianist-vocalist splitting her year between Austin and KC. Soul-leaning, dinner-length, Plaza views out the window.
→ Chaz at the Raphael
Lonnie McFadden Dinner & Jazz Show · Saturday / 7 PM
The Armstrong program, Prohibition-era cocktails, three-course dinner priced separately. Friday is sold out — Saturday is the last seat on this run.
→ Lonnie's Reno Club
Wicked · Thursday–Sunday
The Oz prequel on tour, in residence at Music Hall through Aug 30. Thursday and Friday at 7:30 PM, Saturday at 2 and 7:30, Sunday at 1 and 6:30, plus a 1:30 PM matinee this Thursday. Runs 2 hours 45 with one intermission — build the drink in afterward, not before.
→ Music Hall
👨👩👧👦 Family Friendly
Neighbor Night · Friday / 6–10 PM
PH Coffee's second-and-fourth-Friday gathering in Pendleton Heights. Pay-what-you-can community meal, neighborhood conversation, rotating activities. Open to anyone in the metro, not just the Northeast.
→ PH Coffee
The One Sky Project · Running Daily
Seven short films on cultural and Indigenous astronomy under the 60-foot dome. $8 general admission, $5 members, free under 3. Doors close at showtime — there is no late entry.
→ Arvin Gottlieb Planetarium
Art in the Loop: 816 Day Performances · Sunday / 6–8 PM
Four KC acts outdoors at City Market — The Royal Chief, The DynamitExperience, BodaciousThang and FK MENACE. Presented with the KC Streetcar Authority. Free.
→ City Market
Last Call
Vetta, Lee’s Summit
Shrimp Diablo, Italian Margaritas…yes, please!
Vetta sits at 219 SE Main in a hundred-year-old building downtown, and before it was Vetta it was Calaveras — Josh and Lanni Edwards' Mexican room. "Vetta" means summit; in the biz, we call that a working name.
Take a margarita and you swap or supplement the orange liqueur with amaretto. That's the whole Italian part — almond, marzipan, a sweetness instead of the thin citrus bite. Order it alongside the shrimp diablo. Heat and amaretto is an old pairing — the sweetness doesn't cancel the burn, so no crying about it.
Now. If you planned properly, you got another move up your sleeve. A few blocks away at 6½ SW 3rd Street, there's a door with no sign on it. There's a buzzer. You go up. Merideth Veritasi and her husband spent two years turning a second-story massage studio into a hammered-copper bar with dark green walls and exposed brick and a gold W set into the tables. The seasonal menu is real. The house drink is the Smoked Vanilla — house-blended whiskey, house-made vanilla burnt sugar, aromatic bitters, served over a clear cube with a W melted into the face of it.
The room is small. The guest list is tight. You text for the table, and they text back.
Two rooms, a few steps, one night. You’re welcome.
—Proost! 🍸
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