Matt "doesn't need a website to tell him he's elite" E.'s Profile

While I still have some reservations about this place, I have to say that I have been quite impressed with the level of service during my last couple of visits. I don't know if i'd come here as a stop on a regular night out on the town, but if i want a quiet place to enjoy great drinks with a couple of friends, Manifesto is just fine by me.

I brought my pregnant sister here a couple of months back, and they created her some delicious virgin cocktails that she raved about.

On another visit, the bartender/owner/jack-of-all-trades Ryan Maybee not only remembered my name, but also what types of cocktails i liked, and made me something off menu that he was sure i'd love. Well, he was right! It was about my favorite drink ever.

I still don't know if i'll hit up Manifesto on a regular basis. But for what they're trying to do, they do it exactly right. This place really knows what customer service is all about! I think in the future i'll always try and sit at the bar, as the people behind it are experts at their craft and quite personable.

I walk past this coffee shop every day for work, and I have to say that it's really grown on me. The staff is friendly and they make some excellent drinks. They've actually gotten to the point where they can remember my name, something that never really seemed to happen at my local Starbucks or my neighborhood coffee shop, so that's cool.

The interior is bright and comfortable, and conducive to both working on something solo or hosting a small meeting.

They make an awesome smoothie, and in my opinion are the only place in downtown worth getting a smoothie at all. Not that there's much competition in that regard.

My only wish is that it had later hours, though I can understand why they don't. I just really wish downtown KC had at least one decent coffee shop that was open late.

Is this place EVER open?

It could be the best coffee ever, and you'd never know, as it seems no matter what time you walk past they're closed.

I went here with two friends on a Wednesday night. It was probably around 10:00 and the place was empty. I asked the man behind the bar, who i assume was the manager, if they were still open. He assured us that they were and we were welcome to sit wherever we liked.

We sat in the lounge and each ordered a dessert. . Really up to this point, no complaints.

THEN the guy from behind the bar comes up and says he needs to go ahead and give us our check so that we can pay and he can do his bar drawer! We hadn't even gotten our order yet! We decide not to fight it and just pay, but then he hovers over us as we fill out the credit card slip. How does somebody in the industry, especially somebody at his leve, not realize how insanely rude this is??? He promises that he'll still watch over us to make sure we don't need anything before we leave. He doesn't.

Awesome hospitality Marquee. I doubt I'll be back.

My absolute favorite place to go in KC to pretend that I'm wealthy and need to furnish my fabulous loft. In reality, my only semi-fabulous loft gets furnished at stores 1/4 of the price of this place.

Black bamboo has an incredibly well thought out mix of Asian antiques and contemporary furnishings, and if somebody out there would just PLEASE be my sugar daddy i'd have the coolest party pad ever.

The service staff is helpful and enthusiastic about their products, as well as incredibly knowledgable. Whoever does the display work in their store is quite skilled as well.

One thing to note is that if you really look around, they have a handfull of things that would surprise you in their affordable nature. I may not be able to afford that $10,000 armoire, but hey that sleek and modern business card holder for only $50 is well worth the money!

Check this place out. You'll be glad you did.

Hey hipsters! Before you go grabbing your torches and pitchforks, 3 stars on yelp = "A-OK", not awful or terrible or whatnot....

I've been a fan of Hammer Press for years. I've purchased their cards for many occasions, and have some of their art displayed in my apartment. I've found them in other cities and cheered them on, wanting this cool company from KC to succeed.

Why the 3 stars then? Well, I think their show room has seriously fallen off lately. Much less browsable merchandise is on display, and there are large portions of the shop that just seem empty. Why all the wasted space? In addition, the people behind the counter haven't been as friendly as I remember.

Also, I went in a few days back to pick up the pretty damn cool poster they did for the Wilco show. I COULD have bought it at the show for $15, but i had walked there, and was going to bars afterwards, and had pretty successfully tied one on, and figured i'd either lose it or damage it. When I got to the store, it was marked up to $50! They had tons of copies as well, it wasn't as if it was a supply-and-demand thing. Ridiculous.

I love Hammerpress, but that love is a little tarnished today compared to what it was in years past.

I live in River Market, and work downtown. I typically walk to work, but when i get out of work at 3 AM, I typically don't like to walk home. No big deal, cabs are easy to find, and the fare is cheap.

HOWEVER....

Yellow Cab drivers have twice now refused to take me home b/c they said it wasn't worth their time, and two nights ago i was actually asked to get out of the cab b/c he thought some girl on the street would be a better fare. This has never happened with another company, at least not to me. I'm pretty sure it's illegal, and it pisses me off, because i tip GREAT (to compensate for the short fare, but i shouldn't have to tell them that in advance).

If Yellow Cab is the only one on the street, of course i'll still use them. I'd like to get home. But I would choose ANY company over them, if i were ever given a chance.

For some time now, I've been unsure of how to go about reviewing Town Topic. The place is small and crowded, with decidedly average burgers and fries. It's a bit dingy, and there have definitely been a few late night visits where I've been a bit sketched out by the clientele. On paper, this place wouldn't deserve more than 3 stars, which seems to be about the average score here on Yelp. But every time I walk through the door and belly up to the counter, I spend the next hour or so thinking about how much i love this place.

Town Topic is an institution, it's been around longer than i've been alive. It's been around longer than my parents have been alive! For anybody that goes here on a somewhat regular basis, you know that the same people are ALWAYS working. Is it a family business? For how many decades have the same people been working the counter and flipping burgers? I find myself wanting to know the history of this place. What was it like during segregation? During the 70s and the gangland wars? What types of stories do these workers have to tell? In a culture where everything new is to be cherished, in a town where the old is regularly torn down and replaced with cookie cutter development, a place with serious longevity is to be respected.

Most people don't tend to just stop by Town Topic. I don't think i've ever been there during daylight hours. Instead, I go there late at night, at the end of rather monumental evenings that we're just not ready to end. I have memories of sitting at that counter with some of my best friends, and with some of the people who have been most important in my life. Laughing over a double cheeseburger or a truckstop omelette,  rehashing the events of the evening. Hypothesizing over the backstories of the revolving door of characters who find their way in. Town Topic is a great equalizer. 3 AM, eating respectable diner food with junkies and club kids and lawyers and workers just getting off the clock.

Town topic is decidedly more than the sum of its parts. If you were to review the place strictly on a criteria of how good the food and service are, i can understand a lower score. But to me, Town Topic is a place that I love, an exclamation point at the end of so many wonderful nights, a cherished piece of my Kansas City experience.

I know what you're all doing on Yelp.

You're going to start by looking for a review of something innocent, maybe a movie theater or a restaurant. You tell yourself that everybody looks up these places, and it's nothing to be ashamed of.

But sure enough, eventually your true temptation gives in, and you're crusing Yelp, looking for information on the best gay leather dive bars in town...

sicko.

Well let me tell you something. I don't know what qualifies something as the "best" gay leather dive bar in town, but i can tell you what in my mind qualfies as the worst. It's Daddy's. And this is the story of how I, a relatively clean cut, decidedly non-leather homo ended up here, and how i'll never go back.

I have a friend in from NYC. He lived in KC a few years back and was visiting family. After coming over to my place for dinner and some drinks, we decide to head downtown, and to hit up a few different bars, places he had never been before.

We start at Flo's Caberet.  When we arrive, the  night's "show" is actually a lesbian bingo league, hosted by a drag queen. We're about to turn around in when the hostess shines the spotlight on us and says "come on in boys. They don't bite. I do, but they don't". We're now obligated to stay for 1 drink. We knock back a whisky and head for the door. So far, we're 0-1

We go to Balancas. We don't even make it in the door when my friend comments on how it smells like shit. like actual feces. We turn around as i explain that is because Balancas is the human toilet of Kansas City, and it needs to be flushed. 0-2.

I tell him that Czar bar is awesome, and he'd like it. And I think normally he would, if it wasn't AMATEUR COMEDY NIGHT! knock back another whiskey and head for the door, with some guy with carrot-top esque hair and a hunting cap talking about masturbating when high. 0-3.

My friend has been subtly suggest Daddy's the whole night, and finally says that my last selection sucked, so i'm now obligated to go to his bar of choice.

We walk in, push our way though a leather curtain, and notice that the bar is absolutely empty. Both of my accomplices have to use the bathroom, leaving me to kinda look around. It's actually not as scary as i had thought it might be.

Sure, there's photos on the wall of past winners of the annual "Mr Daddy's Boy" competition, but that's only mildly creepy, right? I've been to MUCH worse! We head to the bar, sit down and order a drink.

As we're waiting for the bartender, i see something moving (which is hard to do, because this place IS quite dark) on the bar. Oh awesome! it's a cockroach! We smash it, and the bartender comes over, looks at us sheepishly and picks it up with a napkin. Doesn't spray down the bar or anything, just picks it up with a cocktail napkin. I assume we're leaving after this, but NO my friend orders the round. I'm thouroughly skeeved out as while we're waiting for my friends card to be ran, ANOTHER cockroach goes across the bar! this place is AWFUL!

I insist that if we're staying for the drink that we have to go to the patio out back, because i don't want any more roaches running across the bar. We head to a table in the corner, and there's only one other group out back. We notice after a while that directly behind us is what seems to be a crude tent fashioned out of rope and tarp. We peek in, and we decide that this isn't just any regular tent. It's a sex tent. ew.

About this time, i'm trying to get my friends to hurry along, when i look at the other group across the patio. No longer a group. Just two guys. One sitting in a chair. the other, standing over him, crotch in face. I didn't get a good look, mostly because i didn't want to, but i don't think those guys were chatting.  0-4.

Daddy's is seriously the grossest bar i've ever been to, in terms of cleanliness, and i've gone out quite a bit to dives in dirty cities like NYC and New Orleans. Public sex just makes it worse. I wanted to dip my entire body into a vat of Purell.

I dig this place!

I've bought a few plants from here over the years, and just a couple of days ago bought myself a white oleander tree and a pretty kick ass pot for it.

The place is cluttered, but i like that about it. it fits in perfectly with the environment. They have all sorts of fun plants you wouldn't expect to find. I might have to go back for a volcano flower!

Not that i see a wedding in my immediate future, but their wedding stuff looks quite nice.

The staff is helpful, and cut me a deal when i expressed that i wasn't sure if i wanted to spend the money at the time for the plant and planter.

I'm glad to have them in my neighborhood.