Goods & Services >>

• Best Kansas City Product, Kan. (1 Comment)
  Garmin International
  Garmin's Super Bowl ad is symbolic of the company itself. You know the one: A suit-wearing dude uses a Garmin device to turn himself into a giant robot to kick the crap out of a map monster. If you haven't figured out the symbolism, the beast is Microsoft, Magellan, Google and every other... More >>
• Best Kansas City Product, Mo.
  Christopher Elbow Chocolates
  If you've ever been to Brennan's in New Orleans, you've probably had the bananas Foster. Brennan's created this dessert of bananas, caramel and flaming rum, and it's as decadent as it sounds. Now picture it — the sticky sweetness of the caramel, the earthy bananas, the sting of the rum... More >>
• Best Gourmet Market
  Dean & DeLuca
  You know how you were talking the other day about how cool it is to live down by the Plaza? Just walk down the street, and there's California Pizza Kitchen, you said. What's out there in JoCo? you asked. God, I can't believe I forgot about Dean & DeLuca. Sure, it's a chain, and it's out of NYC.... More >>
• Best Wine Store
  Cellar Rat Wine Merchants
  Since a 2005 Gallup poll showed that Americans prefer wine to beer, the noble grape has been on the rise, jumping to the dinner table ahead of hops in many bibulous households. Change isn't a bad thing, not even in auld Kansas City. Just look at the growth downtown, where the city's best new... More >>
• Best New Coffee Shop
  The Q Brew
  Java snobs won't find many exotic flavors here, and caffeine fiends who prefer to hang out in places with art-school-chic décor may be a little disoriented at first. But Q Brew is the city's most daring new coffee shop. Late last winter, proprietor Rosie Sheppard opened her storefront in... More >>
• Best Shopping Center (1 Comment)
  Old Westport Shopping Center
  It's an exaggeration to say that the Old Westport Shopping Center is the best shopping center in the Northern Hemisphere. But we've developed warm feelings toward hyperbole. So to anyone who argues that the Old Westport Shopping Center is anything less than the Platonic ideal to which all other... More >>
• Best Vintage Furniture
  Curious Sofa
  Even if you're not a vintagey person, this store is both soothing and invigorating. Owner Debbie Dusenberry knows how to make it all work, from the textiles to the soaps to the slightly shabby chic atmosphere. There are lots of good textures and surfaces to interact with: luxury linens,... More >>
• Best Ethnic Grocery
  LaRocca Grocery Company
  Frank LaRocca answers the buzzer to his family's warehouse and Italian grocery on a weekday morning, which is open from 7:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. weekdays and 9 a.m. to noon Saturdays. LaRocca Grocery Company is a wholesaler first and an Italian grocery second. The grocery section is a corner of... More >>
• Best Library
  Jannes Library
  For most city dwellers, the neighborhood coffee shop has replaced the local library as the hub of urban intellectualism. Though its research librarians can't help in the caffeine department, Jannes Library feels like a trendy java joint with an added dash of artsy inspiration. Perched atop a... More >>
• Best Used-Book Store
  Half Price Books
  With 80-plus stores in 14 states, Half Price Books lacks the charm of an independent shop. But let's be honest: Cigar smoke, mangy dogs and dank basements are overrated. A link in a big chain, the Half Price in Overland Park deserves recognition for a deep and well-organized inventory. It might... More >>
• Best Kicks
  Phenom
  Phenom, the urban streetwear store that opened earlier this year on Grand, carries all the fly footwear, tees, jeans and hoodies a guy could ever need to distinguish himself from the mall-shopping herd. But if one gets the feeling that a thousand tiny eyes are watching from the perimeter of the... More >>
• Best Doctor (1 Comment)
  Sharon Lee
  When we met Dr. Sharon Lee, she was busting her ass on a mountain of paperwork in her cramped office, Southwest Boulevard Family Health Care, about three hours after every other doctor in the metro had hung up the white coat. For Lee, donning her hospital scrubs well into the evening while... More >>
• Best Immigration Lawyer (2 Comments)
  Mira Mdivani
  There's no denying that the line between racism and patriotism has blurred in the debate over immigration. A growing number of Americans think "Send the Aliens Home" is a viable national policy, and they're happy to stand on a street corner — or monitor a construction site — to make... More >>
• Best Urban Farmer (5 Comments)
  Joe Jennings, J-14 Agricultural Enterprises
  Give him an inch of soil, and Joe Jennings will go the extra mile. He may be 78 years old, but this farmer works from sunrise to sunset, making sure every nook and cranny of his eight-acre property — be it a tiny strip along the gravel driveway or a parcel near the stairs to his back door... More >>
• Best Mysterious Place
  I Love a Mystery
  Yes, sprawling existential fiction, in which characters reflect on their lives and nothing much happens until one moment of epiphany, has its place. But sometimes you want to read a book with a plot. When the mood strikes you, your best bet is I Love a Mystery. Independent bookstores on the... More >>
• Best Place to Score Cool Kids' Clothes (1 Comment)
  Lillibelle
  All children's clothing, by virtue of its wee proportions, is cute. But not all tyke-sized adornments can be considered cool. Unless you're shopping at Lillibelle. The little store for little kids stocks styles for the most precocious youngsters. There are bright onesies emblazoned with attitude... More >>
• Best Baubles
  Natural Wear
  The clerks at this Prairie Village women's-wear store have a hard time describing the jewelry selection. "Um, maybe eclectic," one says. "Classically bohemian?" another offers. A third says, "Eclectically ethnic," and the first two "ooh" and nod in agreement. It's not easy to describe because... More >>
• Best Bed and Breakfast
  The Porch Swing Inn
  Parkville may feel a little too close to qualify as a weekend getaway, but the Porch Swing Inn makes the Missouri River town seem a bit more luxurious. Yeah, B&Bs sometimes have a bad rap as cheesy, antique-laden boardinghouses where you have to sit through breakfast with Grandma's bridge club.... More >>
• Best Free Trade Gifts (1 Comment)
  Ten Thousand Villages
  Among the disappointingly low number of free-trade stores in the metro, Ten Thousand Villages is one of 160 retail stores in North America specializing in an eclectic selection of African, Asian and Latin American products. The coffee (get a free sample near the jewelry counter) is one of the... More >>
• Best Green Building Supplies
  Straw, Sticks and Bricks
  Seven years ago, Jen Carlson and Josh Shear had a hell of a time finding sustainable materials to build their straw-bale house in Lincoln, Nebraska. So instead of letting the eco-frustration continue, the couple created the very business that would have met all their Earth-friendly construction... More >>
• Best Thrift Store
  Avenue Thrift Store
  A gaggle of old ladies bitching at a store clerk is generally a reason to shop elsewhere. At Avenue Thrift, the cranky blue-hairs are an indication of the loyal clientele. The KCK secondhand shop has an '80s-inspired neon sign that boasts "Kansas City's Best Since 1966." Its varied stock of... More >>
• Best Supermarket
  Green Acres Market
  Gone are the days when watching what you eat means starving yourself on some fad diet. In recent years, mega-retailers such as Wild Oats and Whole Foods have put organic foods in the public eye. But now the little guys, like Barb and John Hoffman, are getting in on the sustainable-grocery biz.... More >>
• Best Dry Cleaners
  Hangers
  One very long word sums up the trouble with dry cleaning: perchloroethylene. It's toxic stuff, and it's been the industry standard for the past half-century. So in the early 1990s, a researcher at the University of North Carolina patented a cleaning process using liquid carbon dioxide —... More >>
• Best Place for Cheap Couture
  Revue
  Terry Richardson, the owner of Revue, a tiny boutique on 39th street, has been into vintage clothing for 16 years. Her love of fashion — watching old styles reinvented over and over again — makes her seem psychic. "Vintage teaches you what's coming up in fashion long before it hits,"... More >>
• Best Mom and Pop (1 Comment)
  Los Alamos Market y Cocina
  Agustin Juarez estimates that on an average weekend, 500 pounds of menudo is consumed by the patrons of Los Alamos Market y Cocina. That's a lot of cow stomach. But they don't mess around on the West Side. And they obviously don't go to Juarez's windowless brick convenience store at 17th Street... More >>
• Best Store to Live In
  Crate & Barrel
  The gorgeous, modernist Crate & Barrel in Leawood seems ideal. The architecture is fresh and airy, and the friendly juxtapositions of objects and furniture are engaging and quite handy. And whereas living in the flagship store on Chicago's Michigan Avenue might be better, we can't have... More >>
• Best Discount Store (1 Comment)
  Dirty Don's Bargain Center
  Dirty Don's is so down-and-dirty that it makes most dollar stores look like Nordstrom. The 80,000-square-foot warehouse off Raytown Road isn't air-conditioned (though there are several electric fans for hot days), and items are arranged in helter-skelter fashion. But that's part of the... More >>
• Best Mocha
  Morning Glory Espresso
  Kathi Loper is the first to say that she isn't trying anything fancy. She just wants her drinks to taste good. "It's a simple drink, really," says the 57-year-old owner of Morning Glory Espresso. "It's as basic as it can be: milk, chocolate and coffee. But if it's good, it's because the three... More >>
• Best Green Cleaners
  Return to Green
  The polluted air hanging over Kansas City is so foul that the federal government earlier this year gave bureaucrats an ultimatum to clean up the metro's act. But Andrea Barnett has a surprise for homeowners: The air in your house is just as nasty, and the chemicals in the cupboard are plenty... More >>
• Best Place for Nerds
  Vintage Stock
  Vintage Stock is a nerd's paradise, which, sadly and coincidentally, looks a lot like Mom's basement. Except Mom boxed up all of our G.I. Joes and Star Wars action figures, threw out our old comic books and sold our CDs, VHS tapes and DVDs. At least she hung onto our baseball card collection.... More >>
• Best Comic-Book Shop
  Clint's Comics
  When we heard about the murder of Captain America, we had to read about the death of Marvel's great patriot. We went comic-shop hopping. By the time we hit the pair of comic-book shops that face each other in Westport, it was 10 minutes to 6. At Clint's Comics, owner Jim Cavanaugh told us that... More >>