Drink >>

• Best New Bar, Mo. (4 Comments)
  The Drop
  When The Drop opened earlier this year, it quickly became known for its tasty bruschetta menu. However, considering its Martini Corner location and its occasional jam sessions during the week, it's no surprise that it soon attracted an eclectic crowd. Once described as a punk bar for grown-ups,... More >>
• Best New Bar, Kan. (2 Comments)
  Jaywalkers Sports Bar & Grill
  A good happy hour is a great thing. But at Jaywalkers, happy hour also involves a huge blue plastic cup. You buy it for $4, and then you get refills: $2 for domestics and $2.50 for imports or premium brews. We like to start with Free State's Copperhead Pale Ale (yeah, Free State on tap, in KC).... More >>
• Best Neighborhood Bar, North
  Chappell's Restaurant & Sports Museum
  Despite the old Cheers cliché, it's often not best to go somewhere where everyone knows your name. Walk into a bar with too familiar a clientele, and you feel like you're at a family reunion. Boring. At a local watering hole, it's better to know just one guy — someone dependable... More >>
• Best Neighborhood Bar, East
  The Daily Double
  The Daily Double is a bit of a dark horse. Located in Raytown's Woodson Village strip mall — where every building is painted gray — the bar is distinguished only by a glowing sign that reads "Lounge." However, behind the nondescript exterior lies a cool place that's populated with... More >>
• Best Neighborhood Bar, West
  Fat Matt's Vortex
  When describing the quirky charm of Fat Matt's Vortex, it's hard to know where to start. The bar used to be a funeral home, so there's still a crematorium in the basement. Then a lovely Wiccan and her husband bought the place and decorated it with witch knickknacks. Now, the Strawberry Hill bar... More >>
• Best Drink Trinket (1 Comment)
  The Sandbar
  It's only fitting that a watering hole called The Sandbar pours lots of homemade tropical concoctions with such names as the Pink Flamingo and the Bahama Mama. But best of all is the Shark Attack, a sweet, blue, vodka-and-sour-based refreshment served in a 16-ounce glass. In lieu of a lame... More >>
• Best Bartender (3 Comments)
  Charlie Gomez, Granite City Food & Brewery
  Charlie Gomez knows more than what's on tap at Granite City Food & Brewery in the Northland. He knows who he's serving. That's because Gomez, who spent years pouring drinks for anonymous passers-by at airport and casino bars, still believes in the part of his job description that most bartenders... More >>
• Best Neighborhood Bar, South
  Walsh's Corner Cocktail
  Hidden in a strip mall near 85th Street and Wornall, Walsh's Corner Cocktail is a roomy, well-lighted bar with a sportscentric bent. For the past 23 years, owner Pat Walsh has thrown a party on February 6 in honor of Babe Ruth's birthday — a feat so wonderful that The New York Times wrote... More >>
• Best Sports Bar
  The Yacht Club
  The Yacht Club may have a highfalutin name, but it's for the Jayhawks-lovin' Everyman. Thanks to a 2003 renovation, the sports bar does make you feel a bit like you're on a boat. But the all-wood interior is decorated mostly with non-nautical sports memorabilia, including a giant old KU... More >>
• Best Beer Expert
  Gordon Gerski, Power Plant Restaurant & Brewery
  On the second Saturday of every month, Power Plant Restaurant & Brewery brewmaster Gordon Gerski does the beermaker's equivalent of keeping it real. He runs Brew U, a beermaking class that demonstrates how to make a handcrafted pint from start to finish. See, before becoming the head beer guy at... More >>
• Best Place to Watch a Soccer Game
  The Red Lyon Tavern
  In Lawrence, the best place to watch some football action — not the American kind, thanks — isn't a sports bar at all. As owner Jerry Neverve explains, the Red Lyon Tavern is "just a neighborhood joint" where you never have to shout over a band. Free popcorn's always available, and... More >>
• Best Dive Bar
  Chez Charlie's
  Hiya, bub. Our name's the Pitch, and we'll be helping you find the perfect dive bar for this period in your life. What you want is something cozy and out of the way. With its long, leather booths, intimate bar and rec-room ambience, "cozy" doesn't even begin to describe Chez Charlie's. And "out... More >>
• Best Patio
  Maloney's Bar and Grill
  The wide wraparound concrete patio at Maloney's Bar and Grill rules because of it's accessories: metal patio chairs that actually rock like cool lounge chairs and huge umbrellas to block out the sun of summer. The entire area is wired with a kick-ass sound system that blasts party anthems, and... More >>
• Best 3 a.m. Bar
  McCoy's Public House and Brewkitchen
  Harry's is merry, Kelly's is swelly and the Buzzard is, uh, fluzzered. But lately, when that 1:30 a.m. call sounds, we want a little breathing room and a pint of good beer from a bartender who's not serving up 10 dozen shots to eight different shnockered Westport tourists-for-the-night. Such a... More >>
• Best Martini
  Eldridge Hotel
  Frankly, a martini isn't so much a cocktail as a great excuse to drink 8 ounces of liquor in one sitting. The historic Eldridge Hotel is home to the Jayhawker bar and Ten, a restaurant that would be classy enough to accommodate a legendary British secret agent, even if it didn't specialize in... More >>
• Best Place for Your Fetish
  Balanca's
  Lots of people have style, but it takes real dedication and years of body modification to look like some of Balanca's patrons. On any given night, there might be dreadlocks that have taken decades to grow and tattoos that have cost thousands of dollars. Or you might see fetishes that took years... More >>
• Best Place to Pick Up a MILF
  Raoul's Velvet Room
  The producers of NBC's Age of Love could easily have used Overland Park nightspot Raoul's as a permanent set. If you don't know Age of Love, it pits 40-something women against 20-something women, all vying for the "prize" of a single bachelor (whose age, naturally, isn't a factor). Much more... More >>
• Best Late-Night Happy Hour
  Kona Grill
  It's called Reverse Happy Hour, but, no, prices don't go up. It's reversed because it begins when most of the happy-hour crowd is thinking about calling it a night. This happy hour runs from 10 p.m. to midnight during the week and from 11 p.m. to 1 a.m. on Fridays and Saturdays. And the food and... More >>
• Best Bar for Smokers (1 Comment)
  Gossip Inn
  All eyes turn toward the door of the Gossip Inn when it opens, which can be intimidating the first time you arrive. But to quote a bumper sticker sighted in the Dot, "KCK: It's not for sissies." The Gossip Inn is a hole in the wall where you'll find the requisite country hits and hard rock on... More >>
• Best Monday Night Happy Hour
  City Tavern
  There's a scene in Blake Edwards' 1982 gender-bending musical, Victor Victoria, in which a starving, destitute Julie Andrews scams a fancy restaurant by freeing a cockroach from her purse. Andrews then causes a total scene, accusing the upscale bistro of being filthy. Just because a girl lives... More >>
• Best Gay Bar
  Fox Bar
  There's sort of a cliché for gay bars: loud dance music, lots of primped boys and girls, maybe a drag performance here or there. The Fox does its own thing. Yeah, the Overland Park bar attracts its share of attractive clientele, but on the average Friday night, there are just as many guys... More >>
• Best Activity When Bombed
  Oceans of Fun
  When people drink, their eyes wander. Well, we've got two words for you: lazy river. Oceans of Fun has an 800-foot-long watery lounge for inner tubes, perfect for cooling off and checking out hard bodies — or, depending on your luck, spotting mullets in the wild. Bargoers often arrive... More >>
• Best Cheap Night Out
  Blue Moose Bar & Grill
  The best part about beer specials in Kansas is that they run all day long. On Thursdays at the Blue Moose, that means $1.50 drafts and bottles are available from 11 a.m. to 2 a.m. — an all-day happy hour that culminates in a wall-to-wall party by closing time. Because it is the same price... More >>
• Best Karaoke (2 Comments)
  The Roxy
  What makes the Roxy's weekly karaoke nights so fun is the presence of the bar's movable stripper pole. Mounted on a platform base, the pole goes up about 6 feet, and during the Tuesday- and Wednesday-night sing-alongs, it gets plenty of action. In addition to the pole, the Roxy — a cool... More >>
• Best Suburban Bar Tour
  Downtown Lenexa
  Sometimes you want to have a drink somewhere new. And when that urge hits, we'd like to humbly suggest Lenexa as your barhopping ground. Start your night out at Jerry's Bait Shop at 13412 Santa Fe Trail, where you can usually see a band for a $3 cover. Between the patio and the small, wooden... More >>