Big Rip has hung its shingle. Now it's time to try their beers.
The Big Rip Brewing Co. is set to let it rip Sunday. The two-man microbrewery in North Kansas City (216 East Ninth Avenue) will be serving up samples to the participants in the Tour de Brew bike race as part of the official open of their Tap Room. After that, they'll be serving flights of five beers for those who arrive on two wheels, four wheels or foot, until they run out.
Josh Collins and Kip Feldt have been working on launching Big Rip, which includes a production brewery and tap room, since last summer. They spent the better part of eight months converting an old warehouse space, which has also been built out to accommodate the brewery's neighbor: Kansas City SmokeShack BBQ. Big Rip is also now scheduling tours of its brewery.
Indios Carbonsitos, one of the city's original food trucks, is giving out free tortas on Saturday to help promote Hangover III. (The event kicks off at 10 a.m.; the free food starts at noon.) The first 100 people in line at the "Free Chow," event at Original Juan (111 Southwest Boulevard) are eligible as long as they like Indios Carbonsitos on Facebook first.
Eat your way across Kansas City's culinary landscape at The Pitch's Taste of Kansas City 2013 this Sunday at 5:30 p.m. in the KC Live Block of the Power & Light District. The annual local food-and-drink sampling party includes more than 20 restaurants (Clark's, BRGR, Los Alamos, KC Smokeburger, Thai Orchid and Poco's among them) and beer from Sam Adams. As you walk through the outdoor festival that benefits Big Brothers Big Sisters of Greater Kansas City, six cheftestants compete for the Gold Fork - the trophy given to the winner of the event's cook-off. Because there's alcohol, this is a 21-and-older event. Tickets cost $35. VIP tickets, which include entry at 5 p.m., are $40.
Kansas City's Ninth Street has changed in a half-century, but the Humdinger hasn't.
This hot afternoon called for a cold milkshake. Not one of those bland boring (and probably chemical-laden) shakes at one of the conglomerate fast-food restaurants, but something a little more eccentric. Maybe a pineapple milkshake or a pina colada version. The 51-year-old Humdinger Drive-In at 2504 East Ninth Street (it's between Olive and Prospect) serves those flavors every day, along with banana, chocolate, strawberry, vanilla, and bubble gum.
At noon today, it was standing-room-only inside one of the last drive-in restaurants left in Kansas City's urban core (Harold's Drive-Inn at 1337 Admiral Boulevard, dating back to 1958, is the other); neither has a drive-through window. You park, get out of your car, go inside and order at the counter.
The line was long enough at the Humdinger that I had plenty of time to peruse what may be the very longest drive-in menu in the city.
In 1984, Kansas City's Gay Pride Festival was little more than a halfhearted little carnival set up in the parking lot behind the since-razed Dover Fox saloon, at 43rd Street and Main. Over the past 29 years, the event has gotten much bigger, much grander - with the occasional financial scandal here and there.
This year, after a 2012 turn in the Power & Light District, the Gay Pride Festival is "scaling down, going back to basics," says the festival's chairman, Mason Hakes. Instead of a lavishly mounted production featuring nationally known performers, this year's Pride Festival returns to Westport on May 31 and June 1 and has booked only local performers, organized by Kansas City drag queen Moltyn Decadence.
It could be a long, long show: "NO ONE will be turned away that wants to showcase their talents," writes Ms. Decadence on the Facebook page for the Kansas City Diversity Coalition, the new organization sponsoring the event.
Posted
by Scott Wilson
on Thu, May 16, 2013 at 2:21 PM
Nigel Parry
Gaffigan: portly paterfamilias
"People keep bringing up wistfulness," Jim Gaffigan says. We're on the phone, talking about Dad Is Fat, the comedian and actor's first book. Like Gaffigan's act, it's sharply observed and quotably droll, a steady drip of high-quality chuckles rather than a wave of gut laughter. "I have five children, and I don't even own a farm," he writes in one late chapter.
Also like his act, the book forswears profanity - not least because Dad Is Fat isn't just kid-friendly but kid-centered. But now an unexpected oath hangs in the air: the W-word. He wonders why people keep saying his contribution to goofy-father lit feels so ...
"Sentimental?" he asks. "Does wistful mean, I don't know, a sentimentality, a sincerity?" I make some fumbling defensive noises while scrolling through a mental thesaurus for a more flattering alternative, something less Proustian. But Gaffigan isn't really complaining. This comic, whose lens is perhaps second only to Jerry Seinfeld's in terms of clarity and polish, is just doing what he does: observing.
Posted
by David Hudnall
on Thu, May 16, 2013 at 12:08 PM
Earle the pearl.
The rootsy summer lineup at Crossroads KC at Grinders just got a bit rootsier: The venue announced today that Steve Earle will grace the stage on Tuesday, July 9. Tickets on sale tomorrow, May 17, at 10 a.m.
Posted
by Steve Vockrodt
on Thu, May 16, 2013 at 11:45 AM
KCI
Friends of KCI don't want to see this.
Friends of KCI just announced plans to start an initiative petition to prevent the advancement of a new airport terminal without the approval of voters.
"We do not need to spend $1.5 billion on a new airport," reads Friends of KCI's statement. "We believe there are better options."
Friends of KCI is something of an ad hoc group of Brookside residents with an ear to the ground under City Hall. It is focused against a single-terminal version of Kansas City International Airport.
S.D. Strong Distilling is heating up in Parkville.
While other suburban fathers in Parkville tend to their lawns on the weekends, Steve Strong is heading 65 feet below ground. The former rocker, most recently of Steve Strong and the Jackknife Truckers, and father of three has been toiling in the caves below Park University for the past two years. Strong, 44, is the pitchman and distiller for S.D. Strong Distilling, the microdistillery that recently began selling its first spirit: vodka.
"Microdistilleries look like the beginning stages of the microbrewery thing about 20 years ago," Strong says. "And I thought it would be cool to be in on something like this."
At d'Bronx (3904 Bell), I always walk in intending to get a grinder and I end up hearing myself order a slice of pizza and a chocolate-chip cookie (if they're recently out of the oven) before my brain can catch up with my mouth. But several weeks ago, armed with the mission of compiling a month's worth of sandwiches for this week's cover story, I was determined to walk away with a hoagie in hand. I'd heard good things about the pastrami, but when I asked the woman behind the counter if it was house-made, she told me that it was shipped in. However, the corned beef was made by d'Bronx hands. So, 15 minutes later, I left with a hot corned beef on rye with melted swiss and deli mustard.
The Pitch's Taste of KC is ready for eaters this Sunday
Indios Carbonsitos and the Hangover III and other weekend possibilities
Cody Rhodes keeps his family's tradition alive on WWE's Monday Night Raw
KC Pride Festival 2013? Yes, it's still on
The Humdinger: Stand in line to get in, baby
Big Rip Brewing Co. opens to the world Sunday
The Sucka Free Producer's Showcase is tonight at RecordBar
Where to celebrate American Craft Beer Week in KC