Goods & Services >>

• Best Thing Made in Kansas City
  A. Zahner Company
  On a recent road trip to Chicago, we found ourselves ignoring views of the skyline and Lake Michigan and staring instead at the band shell in Millennium Park, wondering how anyone could curl steel like Christmas ribbons. Little did we know that it was done here in Kansas City. The firm that... More >>
• Best Video Store
  SRO Video
  "It's beer night tonight," the clerk told us as we roamed the aisles of SRO Video. Beer night? Yeah, he told us. Every second Friday of the month, the video store gives away free beer. We're not talkin' cans of Natty Light. SRO slings the good stuff -- Newcastle, Red Stripe, Rolling Rock.... More >>
• Best Place to Buy Art (1 Comment)
  The Late Show Gallery
  Unlike some of the big-name galleries in town that show costly works by New York and California artists, Tom Deatherage has staked his career -- and his gallery, The Late Show -- on the fervent championing of Kansas City artists. "He not only shows great work by artists who live here," one local... More >>
• Best Liquor Store
  Lukas Liquor Superstore
  It's Saturday afternoon, and you've already rolled your cart past the taquito sample stand at Costco four times. You look around for liquid sustenance but see only mango salsa in small paper ramekins. It's time to head south for the weekly beer tasting at Lukas Liquor Superstore. Don't worry --... More >>
• Best Grass
  Waldo Grain Company
  Back when it first opened, in 1916, Waldo Grain Company was the city's first park-and-ride. Folks would tie up their horses at its original location, at 75th Street and Wornall, before jumping on the trolley line. Eighty years ago, the place moved three blocks south on Wornall to a... More >>
• Best Pet Groomer (1 Comment)
  Debbie Lamberton
  It's hard to find a good hairstylist. But it may be even harder to find a good groomer for your beloved animal. After a few too many weird haircuts for Dog, we picked up Debbie Lamberton's card. Covered in pink and green polka dots, the card touted inspired pet grooming. We've always loved polka... More >>
• Best Ad Campaign
  Holliday Law Firm
  Lawyers look ridiculous in their advertisements. Imagewise, favorite poses include Spellbinding a Fake Jury, Standing Next to Columns and Pulling Book Off Shelf. The text in the ads tends to be even more predictable ("Work injury?"). So the Holliday Law Firm gets two gavels up for its billboard... More >>
• Best Aging Shopping Center
  Metro North Mall
  Now 30 years old, Metro North stands as a classic of the enclosed shopping center. It's a place where an Orange Julius stand still offers refreshment, Limited Express sells the latest fashion, and Spencer Gifts peddles candy underwear. All that's missing are packs of teens with big-ass combs in... More >>
• Best Shoe Store (3 Comments)
  Habitat Shoe Store
  If looking at great shoes makes something deep inside you just ache, then expect to feel a lot of aching inside the airy, sunlit walls of 1800 Baltimore. The adorably shaggy-haired John McClain opened Habitat with his wife, Kristen, plugging a gaping hole in a strip that is quickly becoming the... More >>
• Best Ethnic Grocery Store
  Chinatown Market
  Bigger than Godzilla, Chinatown Market (formerly Oriental Market Inc.) is a choice destination for browsing, gift shopping, or picking up some kimchi or Sriracha sauce for a home-cooked Asian feast. The grocery's monstrous aisles are filled with every Far-East delight imaginable, among them... More >>
• Best Nail Salon (1 Comment)
  Nail Perfection
  When Mission Center announced that its days were numbered, we were afraid our favorite nail salon would be among those shops to meet the wrecking ball. Luckily, Nail Perfection moved mere feet away from its former home. The new location is a sanctuary dedicated to beauty and pampered relaxation.... More >>
• Best Gift Shop
  Bon Bon Atelier
  Bon Bon Atelier sits next to Dave's Stagecoach Inn, but the two establishments couldn't be at more opposite ends of the spectrum. If you're looking for cheap beer, well, pick Dave's. But when you're searching for something special for one of those friends who has everything -- or, worse, the one... More >>
• Best Hair Salon (2 Comments)
  The Darling Room
  It wasn't long ago that we had a truly terrible grow-out phase that had us considering headscarves. Then came Amber Hodgson, who convinced us that she envisioned sort of a Maggie Gyllenhaal style for us. Ah, she had us. Hodgson owns The Darling room, that Crossroads shop with crystal-trimmed... More >>
• Best Homegrown Mixer
  Original Juan Bloody Mary Mix
  You purists out there might go through the whole routine of distilling your own vodka, growing your own tomatoes, and then, one day, several decades later, enjoying that Bloody Mary. We were once like you. Then we got hip to Southwest Boulevard's Original Juan, purveyor of fine spicy products.... More >>
• Best Place to Shop on the Plaza
  The Apple Store
  Shoppers emit a combination of euphoria and terror when they're plunking down credit cards for $1,000-plus purchases. Generally speaking, we prefer to be one of those shoppers, but when the tank is low, we head to the Apple Store -- where the PowerBooks and iPods hum with hip -- for the... More >>
• Best Shopping Center
  Zona Rosa
  The father of the modern shopping center, Kansas City's own J.C. Nichols, created the Country Club Plaza as the world's first suburban shopping mecca in 1922. The Plaza was a welcome alternative to the crowds, dirt, noise, bustle, and lack of convenient automobile parking downtown. It wasn't... More >>
• Best Tattoo Parlor (1 Comment)
  Mercy Seat
  When we got a tattoo at Mercy Seat, it really flippin' hurt. But everything else about the process was pain-free, from the artists' friendly manners to the carefully applied plastic-wrap bandage. Open only two years but already a Crossroads institution, the Seat is worth visiting not just to get... More >>
• Best Vintage Boutique (2 Comments)
  Vintage Vogue Apparel
  Kathy Rasmussen has been in the vintage clothing business a dozen or so years, but some of the merchandise she stocks has been around for more than 100. Her fabulous Independence boutique, Vintage Vogue, stocks garb from the 1800s to the 1980s, all organized by decade. So whether you're feeling... More >>
• Best Used CDs
  Needmore Discs
  Not every music junkie wants vinyl. You can't listen to it in the car, you can't put it on your iPod without buying extra equipment, and you have to flip it over after, like, 20 minutes. On the other hand, new CDs are too expensive. That's why used CDs just make sense to lots of casual music... More >>
• Best Thrift Store
  Disabled American Veterans Thrift Store
  The Disabled American Veterans Thrift Store in downtown Kansas City, Kansas, had its grand opening in November 2005. Four times the size of its previous location on Minnesota Avenue, the store is still not as large as some other thrifts. But what it lacks in selection, the DAV makes up for in... More >>
• Best Caterer
  Feasts of Fancy
  After running the catering division of The American Restaurant for 10 years, chef Andy Jacot and his wife, Kathleen, left in 2001 to run their own business. Although the Jacots had built a following for their sophisticated food and polished service, they opted to purchase an existing catering... More >>
• Best Makeup
  Sephora at Oak Park Mall
  We like makeup. And not the drugstore kind. We like the brands designed by fancy foreign makeup artists, eye shadow that makes our lids look like satin and nail polishes in colors not found in nature. These are the sorts of confessions that will land us in America's Most Vapid someday, but our... More >>
• Best Laundromat
  Walnut Place Laundromat
  One of the great benefits of living in an immigrant-heavy society is getting to walk into a foreign world every time you walk through the door of an immigrant-owned business. Case in point: Walnut Place Laundromat. It's not the interior that makes the atmosphere -- clean, well lighted, spartanly... More >>