The time has come, Kansas City

Okay, that does it.

Kansas City, we owe it to ourselves to get at least good service at restaurants.

Don't we?

How long does this have to go on?

How long must we be exposed to people who have no idea how to wait on tables at restaurants yet they have chosen that as their vocation? (Did these people not have mothers?).

I just got back from a restaurant in Westport (it shall go unnamed), had a $10 ticket for stew and a drink yet the waitperson thought they should keep the entire $5 difference between the check and what I gave them to pay for it.

And with restaurants in town, it's always something.

I remember being at a restaurant not that long ago, on the Plaza, of all places, and the waitstaff didn't bring me anything near a bread plate.

And it was supposed to be a good restaurant. A "sophisticated" one.

In this town, it's all pretense.

I'll never forget the first time I flew into San Diego and went to dinner with my parents at a restaurant in that city.

There, in San Diego, they know the waiter or waitress is the face of the restaurant. There, they train them, before they even get near a customer, on not just how to wait on a customer--what a thought, huh?--but on the history of the place as well as what's on the menu.

Revolutionary, eh?

So the time has come, Kansas City.

Someone--someone--needs to open a school for waitstaff in this burg.

We're big enough, as a city. Millions is spent each year on dining out.

We shouldn't have to only go to the extremely expensive restaurants in this town in order to get at least good service with our meals.

It's gone on far too long.

Someone?

Anyone?

Like--and want to help--the Heart of America Shakespeare Festival?

Brio Tuscan Grille is donating to the Festival with YOUR help. If you are planning to dine sometime between March 11 - 15, please consider dining at Brio on the Plaza. Just say SHAKESPEARE to your server and 20% of your total will be donated to the Festival!

You get to eat and give to the Festival at the same time. You can also either dine in or carry out, too, so you know. You'll get and enjoy a terrific meal and help a great cause at the same time. It's great for all. Link: www.kcshakes.org

Happy National Soup Day!

Great day for it, don't you think? Bottoms up, everyone. Enjoy.

"Waterfire", renamed

Last evening's performance on Brush Creek should be renamed. It was to be "Waterfire", of course, and it's always terrific but last night's should just be called "Water", what with the rain before it, which delayed the beginning, and then at the end, hastening it's close. I will say this, though, too--the blocking of the sidewalks along the creed stifled the flow and fun of the event. In the past, we could all, as a crowd, go up and down, back and forth at the creek so it made the whole experience very flowing and open and "alive". This time, because we weren't to be on the sidewalks--they were concerned the creek would rise and there we'd all be in water up to our ankles--it killed some of the energy of the event. Still, though, it was fun and a great street party. And Kansas City doesn't have enough street parties.

Saturday evening plans and Kansas City commercial real estate right now

GUESS WHERE NO ONE WILL BE GOING TO DINNER THIS COMING SATURDAY NIGHT IN THE CITY OF KANSAS CITY, MISSOURI?



I'd like to personally thank Mayor Mark Funkhouser for his total, utter and complete lack of leadership on this issue--and virtually all other, for that matter--pertaining to the city he's suppposed to be leading. Additionally, I'd like to thank the person or persons who thought running these kids out of Westport but not offering up any other solutions was a good idea.

Don't you know Crate & Barrel is glad they located out on 119th Street, out in bleached white suburbia right about now? And Bristol's restaurant--don't you know they're glad they moved some years ago?

Some of the "forever hottest property in Kansas City" just became the coldest--The Country Club Plaza, at least temporarily.

Wow.

Who'da' thunk it?