Johnny's at Night

So Stella and I were out Saturday evening and I wanted to grab a couple of drinks and watch the Sporting KC game. Earlier in the day we had driven by the new Johnny's Tavern at 95th and Antioch so it was in my head as a place to go for neighborhood sports bar action. The situation we were in was screaming for Johnny's so we went.


This Johnny's is a very nice looking place like a Buffalo Wild Wings only nicer and more TV'd up. For 8:00 on a Saturday night, the place was packed, we had to wait a minute or 2 to get a table. Once we sat down I asked our waitress, who was very quick to the table, what was on tap and skip the Bud Miller Coors crap. This threw her for a little loop so she had a bit of trouble naming the remaining taps, if I wouldn't have messed with her rhythm I think she would have gotten it. I went with a Sam Adams Octoberfest. As you can imagine, the tap list wasn't great or innovative, but if you can come out of the experience with a beer you like as much as I like Sam's Octoberfest you really can't complain. Stella wanted a cocktail and asked for a cocktail menu but the waitress said that they don't have one, but if you order a cocktail the bar can probably make it. Probably is the key word here, because they couldn't make a French martini, but they could make a Cosmo. Stella said it was pretty much just a cranberry juice.

With all the ordering out of the way I settled in to watch some soccer. I looked at all of the TV's, around 35 of them, and all I saw was semi pro football on every TV. The Oklahoma and Tallahassee semi pro footballers were playing on about half of the TV's and the battle of Utah, Brigham Young versus the gentlemen of Utah, was on all the rest. Yet the local professionals of soccer couldn't see the light on one of the televisions? Luckily, each booth is equipped with its own television so you can watch whichever event of sport you wish to. Not that many people in the bar were watching one of the many televisions, but I'll never understand why a Utah vs. Brigham Young football game was on instead of Sporting KC, I always thought of Johnny's as a soccer friendly bar. Apparently the one at 95th and Antioch is not.

What it is though, is extremely loud with the young people music. Maybe the folks at Johnny's are getting their music cues from their P&L neighbors McFaddens now because they play their music at the same volume. It was a little difficult to order my second beer, a Summit Extra Pale, because I don't talk that loud and our waitress could barely hear me. Stella had more trouble, let's go to the dialog:
Stella: Do you have Tank 7?
Waitress: Bob's 47? Yes. (on tap)
Stella: No, Tank 7
Waitress: What?
Stella: Boulevard, comes in a bottle
Waitress: What 7?
Stella: Tank 7, little 12 oz. bottle
Waitress: I'll check (but with the "this lady's crazy" eyes)
Bud Light Lime drinker sitting next to Britney Spears
The waitress came back with a Tank 7 Little Smokie and a pint glass straight from the dishwasher. When the Tank 7 was poured it smelled like a swimming pool. It tasted fine, but the smell was just about bad enough to ruin it.

Then our evening's entertainment came in, an 8 top of mid 20's people. I always enjoy seeing what these people order. One of them looked just like a good looking version of the teenage Britney Spears. She was a Miller Lite in the bottle girl. The real treat was her friend, a Bud Light Lime in the bottle girl. I'd never encountered a Bud Light Lime drinker in the wild like that. I didn't quite know how to react. I got a pretty good picture of her for a souvenir. I was so astonished at what this girl was drinking that I didn't even notice what the rest of the table had ordered.

Overall, Johnny's was pretty much what you would expect from a Johnson County sports bar only much nicer looking. My only takeaways were shock that the Sporting KC game wasn't on any of the tv's and shock that there's a waitress in Kansas City that has never heard of Tank 7.

Other Popular Posts on KC Beer Blog