Goods & Services >>

• Best Way to Spread the Word
  Literacy Kansas City
  A lot of the volunteer tutors for Literacy Kansas City didn't know what they were getting into, says Director Brad Harris: "Most of them really love reading and literature, and they just want to share that with others." But after they're trained to teach adults to read and have begun their... More >>
• Best Library Magazine Selection
  Mid-Continent Public Library, Red Bridge Branch
  With 249 subscriptions, the Mid-Continent Public Library Red Bridge branch's extensive magazine selection is the most eclectic in town. In addition to Time, Newsweek and People, it also carries Birds & Blooms, Practical Homeschooling, Christian Single, Teddy Bear & Friends and the Romantic Times... More >>
• Best Place to Buy Dutch Wooden Clogs
  Dutch Flowers at the Market
  Nestled near a corner of City Market, the most eye-catching feature of Dutch Flowers is the tall, circular rack of wooden clogs outside the store that causes passersby to do double takes. Red, yellow, black and blue clogs are imported directly from Holland and are ready to make children and... More >>
• Best Place to Buy a $50,000 Carpet
  Smith and Burstert Oriental Carpet
  Open the oversized glass door at Smith and Burstert Oriental Carpets and smell it: an earthy tone tinged with mothballs, the dust from a hundred Middle Eastern bazaars, the wool from a thousand sheep, the grime from a million fingers tying a billion little knots. Dozens of carpets, rolled into... More >>
• Best Remedy for Wanderlust
  Global Connections
  For the past year, travelers have been jittery, airlines have been folding like bridge tables and the media have proclaimed "nesting" the new national phenomenon. Suddenly, traveling isn't such a trip anymore. But there's no need to forego the fun of international shopping. Visiting Global... More >>
• Best Guilt-Free Pleasure
  Chocolate-mousse body wrap at the Hall of Waters
  "Ever imagine yourself dipped in chocolate?" the Hall of Waters spa brochure reads. "You are enveloped in a cocoon of warm chocolate mousselike mud. Your skin absorbs the nutrients of the mud and the scent satisfies even your most intense cravings for chocolate. You feel completely satisfied... More >>
• Best Dentist
  Dr. Mark Mancin, at Northland Dental
  Going to the dentist is not fun. No amount of free toothbrushes, sugar-free lollipops or tongue scrapers will ever change that. But Mark Mancin's office at least offers plenty of distractions and high-tech gadgetry to make the experience interesting. There are no walls between the chairs, so... More >>
• Best Funky Frames
  Optical Innovations
  Glasses have gone urban. Club kids, rappers and hipsters are all wearing funky frames. "A few years ago, everything was vintage," says an Optical Innovations employee. But that's not true anymore. Optical Innovations carries lenses too cool to find at your eye doctor: plastic frames, titanium... More >>
• Best Alternative to Tupperware
  PassioNite Parties Inc.
  Selling Tupperware or Pampered Chef isn't much fun. Friends' eyes roll when the seller announces yet another party. Nobody needs yet another set of plastic popsicle molds or another baking stone, so try hosting a PassioNite Party. After all, a girl can never have too many vibrators, sex toys and... More >>
• Best Wholesome Baked Goods
  Your Bakery
  For those who have a sweet tooth but shun colon-clogging white flour and refined sugar, Your Bakery makes palate-pleasing treats, and the bakers even mill their own flour. Vegan cupcakes (made without animal products) are chocolate with chocolate frosting or orange with creamy white frosting.... More >>
• Best Bar T-Shirts
  Dave's Stagecoach Inn
  We'd like to see high-school debaters tackle such issues: "Resolved: The wearing of bar and/or restaurant T-shirts in the city surrounding said establishment is highly dorky -- except in the case of the T-shirts sold at Dave's Stagecoach Inn." Such silk-screened sentiments as "Kickin' and... More >>
• Best Place to Get Dirty
  The Potter's Obsession
  It's the grown-up's equivalent of making mud pies or sand castles. Put on old clothes, roll up your sleeves and dive right in. The only difference is that the visitor to Potter's Obsession will have something lasting to take home -- a bowl, mug, pot, vase or sculpture. The shop offers all kinds... More >>
• Best Place to Spend a Rainy Afternoon
  The Garage Sale Shop
  When summer turns to fall and all of Ward Parkway's mansion owners have been cleaned out of yet another year's accumulation of salad savers, Bo Flex machines, herbal eye pillows, Precious Moments figurines, Flo-Bees and shoe racks, what's a garage-sale junkie to do? Visit the Garage Sale Shop,... More >>
• Best Dog Massage Therapist
  Bill Reese
  Like people, dogs are better off when they get rubbed on a regular basis. The pampered canine clients of dog groomer Bill Reese all receive a full-body massage as part of the grooming process. The result is a looser, happier dog with better circulation and increased range of motion. Massage also... More >>
• Best Place to Revisit Your Childhood
  Moon Marble Company
  What grown-up wouldn't want to get down on all fours, shoot some marbles and pretend to be eight again? On designated days, Moon Marble Company owner Bruce Breslow invites adults and kids alike to his shop, where for $5 they can watch him make marbles by melting and shaping glass. Then he... More >>
• Best Thrift Store
  Corner Thrift
  Troubled times have fallen upon thrift-store shoppers ever since downtown's Grand Thrift -- with its abundant array of dollar T-shirts -- closed. Filling the void is Corner Thrift. Lacking the musty smell that closes off respiratory systems in many thrift stores, Corner Thrift offers a clean... More >>
• Best Local Company
  3 Dog Bakery
  When customers all over the world order from Three Dog Bakery, they don't shop a catalog. They shop a dogalog. Because at 3 Dog, everything is done doggie-style. Just like a canine, the company is goofy (its Web site is packed with dog puns), straightforward (no weird additives in its dog food,... More >>
• Best Free Monthly Magazine
  Missouri Conservationist
  It's tough to beat stories about dogs. No outrageous, muckraking exposé can generate as much reader interest as a cute little brief about a hero pooch. Every month, Missouri Conservationist seems to carry at least one item about our furry best friends. A pudelpointer graced the cover last... More >>
• Best Retail Block
  Blaze, Revue and Boomerang
  The secret's out about Kansas City's 39th Street neighborhood, where restaurants challenge those in Westport without the annoying bar crowd. Three big reasons for 39th Street's success are three neighboring shops -- Blaze, Revue and Boomerang -- that have given the area an independent retail... More >>
• Best Pet Travel Agency
  Pet Air
  No posters of Chihuahuas sipping margaritas on the beach adorn the windows or walls at Pet Air, where clients range from cats and dogs to albino alligators. Pet Air books flights for thousands of relocating dogs, cats and exotic creatures. Do-it-yourself pet travel means long telephone waits... More >>
• Best Vegetarian "Meat" Market
  IBPS Buddhist Temple
  In a New Yorker cartoon, two men sit gazing up at mounted, stuffed animal heads. "They're all made of soy," one man brags. For vegetarians who don't care who makes fun of them, the best local source of veggie meats is a Chinese Buddhist temple, where Patti Jien sells "meat" she orders from... More >>
• Best Ad Campaign
  The Grass Pad Warehouse
  What did hippies do when they grew up? They landed white-collar jobs, moved into suburban homes and became obsessed with the vitality of their sprawling lawns. That's why the Grass Pad's "high on grass" ad campaign is so brilliant. Perhaps 90 percent of the nursery-and-gardening megastore's... More >>
• Best Getaway Cars
  Kansas City Police Car Sales
  When John Belushi's Jake Blues gets out of jail in The Blues Brothers, he's shocked to see his sibling Elwood (Dan Aykroyd) pull up in an old cop car. "Well thank you, pal," he says. "The day I get out of prison, my own brother picks me up in a police car." Then Elwood slams the accelerator... More >>
• Best Free Service
  Wayside Waifs Pet Behavior Helpline
  The Animal Planet channel features a pet psychic named Sonya who talks to misbehaving parrots, goats, dogs, cats and alligators. Apparently, the animals aren't annoyed by her haughty accent or patronizing tone -- they tell her everything. ("Did another bird pass on recently? A smaller one?"... More >>
• Best Place to Find Lupini Beans
  Lupini beans come in two forms: ready to cook or ready to eat. The ready-to-cook variety is found at any Middle Eastern grocery, but we've found the ready-to-eat variety only at India Emporium, in Overland Park. For the uninitiated, lupini beans come in an olive jar. They look like yellow lima... More >>
• Best Place to Find Manly Kitsch
  Old Geezer's Mantiques
  Old Geezer's Mantiques offers something truly unusual: masculine antiques. No Victorian-era swan chaise lounges here. Instead, look for John Deere memorabilia of all kinds, crude farming implements, tools from the 1800s and even a 1970s Harley Davidson lava lamp that bubbles black, gooey ...... More >>
• Best Place to Fill a Prescription, Restock Ammo and Rebuild the Model Train Set
  Dollar Drug and Sporting Goods
  The odds are extremely slim that anyone will have simultaneous needs to fill a prescription, buy bullets and pick up a batch of fake trees for the old train set in the basement. But Dollar Drug and Sporting Goods would be that one-stop shopping source. The store occupies a narrow space along... More >>
• Best Car Wash
  TLC Car Wash
  To hell with L.A. -- Kansas City is the ultimate driving city. We've got more highway lanes per capita than any other cluster of civilization on the planet. So on most days, our cars are our indispensable allies. They're friends, really, and we need to pamper them now and then with a good... More >>
• Best Locally Made Threads
  Firegirlthreads at Stardust Club and Dancewear
  Jessie Owens, 23, started sewing at age 10, and by high school, she was making clothes from a variety of odd materials. Silk bedsheets, neckties, shower curtains, rubber frogs. She even produced a catalog of her creations, though she initially kept the endeavor private. "I worked on my sewing... More >>
• Best Place to Score Herb in the Northland
  Ben's Freedom Health Food
  Once, not so long ago, herbs abounded in Kansas City's Northland. Before sprawling subdivisions gobbled up the prairie, the area offered a bounty of hairy parsley, Mead's milkweed, Indian pea and ground plum. But asphalt and Kentucky bluegrass are king, and the herbs come prepackaged and ready... More >>
• Best Selection of Gator-Skin Boots
  Al the Boot Man
  It was right around Thanksgiving a few years back when Curtis Allen stopped by a store looking for some nice new boots. He spotted a pair in the store's catalog, but no clerk would order them for him. It was the holiday season, they said -- too busy. Daunted but not dashed, he tracked down an... More >>
• Best Homegrown Product
  Neuticles
  If Neuticles had a television commercial, it would feature a big, muscular Great Dane bounding along a beach in all his glory while a masculine voice sings the product's slogan: "Neuticles! Looking and feeling the saaaaaaame!" Neuticles, patented prosthetic dog testicles selling for $49 to $129... More >>
• Best Drug Store
  Fox's Drug
  According to the retro-chic sign out front, Fox's Drug has been in business for 62 years. According to the décor inside, things haven't changed much. Fox's is one of the last great American drug stores -- family-owned, friendly and decked out with an old-fashioned lunch counter. Folks can... More >>
• Best Place to Quit Smoking
  House of Hezekiah
  When attempting to quit smoking tobacco, it is often helpful to smoke other things for a little while, just to fulfill that desire to pull in smoke and slowly exhale. Rather than advocate smoking something illegal (heaven forbid), we suggest that smokers give House of Hezekiah's Herbal Smokers... More >>
• Best Accessory
  Chain Mail Headdresses
  Popular culture moves fast these days. All it takes is one appearance on MTV's Total Request Live to turn something cutting-edge into a mass-produced fad. Witness the mod revival, brought on by the success of New York City phenomenon the Strokes. Everywhere now are scruffy-haired boys in... More >>
• Best Mini Mart
  Toni's Mini Mart
  One of the best things about Toni's Mini Mart is what owner Toni Woodard doesn't sell -- alcohol. So hers isn't a magnet for the stumble-across-the-sidewalk drunks swarming other urban convenience stores. "We're just trying to have a nice, unique little neighborhood store," says Woodard, whom... More >>
• Best Place to Find That Long-Lost George Brett Card
  V&J's Baseball
  Asked whether they have any George Brett cards, the folks at V&J's Baseball Cards chuckle. "Uh, yeah. We got thousands," owner Jim Roy told us. He claims to have Brett cards for every year since 1975. He's got them all listed in a notebook he keeps behind the counter. Within a few minutes of... More >>
• Best Dog Wash
  REGAP's weekend dogwash
  In the dog world, the following scents are considered perfume: skunk, dead mouse, bat vomit, rotten leaves and cat poop. That's why many dog owners don't want to bathe their dogs in their own bathtubs -- or anywhere near their homes. For a donation, volunteers from Kansas City Retired Greyhounds... More >>
• Best Guy to Hire to Get Horrible Wild Animals out of Your House
  Animal Damage Control by Trapper Jon
  Trapper Jon bears no resemblance to TV's Pernell Roberts, star of Trapper John M.D. in the 1980s. He just traps animals for a living and always has, even before he finished his fisheries and wildlife-biology degree three decades ago at Iowa State University. He'll help a paying snake owner... More >>