A year ago this newsletter was a hunch: that grown adults in Kansas City wanted a guide to the city's nights that wasn't a calendar or a press release. Fifty-three odd Thursdays later, here's we are.
Shots @The Monarch Bar
The Moves
The Monarch Bar · Country Club Plaza. Serious cocktails and a crowd that moves the place. The clean handoff between dinner and the rest of the night…
Green Lady Lounge · Crossroads. No televisions, seven nights a week. Red light, organ trios, and two rooms that expect you to listen. If you only go to one jazz room in Kansas City, go here.
Bar Stilwell · Downtown. The Loews lobby bar is neutral ground. Nobody asks why you're there. It's the best place to begin a night and, more often than not, to end one.
Verdigris · Leawood. Johnson County's most intentional cocktail room, from the team behind The Monarch. Worth the drive.
Chaz at the Raphael · Plaza. Great staff, awesome desserts and jazz, baby. Bring someone you want to impress.
P.S. Speakeasy · Hotel Phillips. The old mail-sorting room behind an unmarked door. IYKYK.
Tom's Town Distilling Co. · Crossroads. Downtown's first legal distillery since Prohibition. Art deco tasting room, gin made on site.
The Artists
Lonnie McFadden at Lonnie's Reno Club, who sings, plays trumpet, and tap dances in the same set. Eboni Fondren, whose candlelit chapel concert at Powell Gardens was one of the year's finest nights. Chris Hazelton's organ jazz, found by being in the right room at the right time. Mark Slimm, the reason you stay for the second set at Green Lady. And my favorite, The J Love Band —wherever they play!
The Moments
The first Cocktail Run (November). Six rooms in one night, from Bar Stilwell to Green Lady. The Brass Monkey was fully booked, which was a rookie mistake. We're running it back in 2026.
Lobby Bar Theory (February). Cheesecake and bourbon at Zephyr in Overland Park, and an argument that Kansas City belongs in the same tradition as New York's King Cole Bar and New Orleans' Carousel Bar.
Winter date nights (December). Heated igloos at The Fontaine, Sippin' Santa at J. Rieger, and Jazz Disciples at The Blue Room.
The World Cup (June–July). Six matches at Arrowhead and a Fan Fest on the lawn of the WWI Museum. For a few weeks the whole world was in town, and the bars stayed open.
Get the Full Guide
The complete Best of Year One guide has every room, what to order, where to sit, the Last Call archive, and the full Can't Miss list. Subscribers unlock it by sharing SecretKC with one friend.
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Stay sharp, KC ☾