Power and Light Death Watch

From TheKCGuy

These are the times that try men's souls. Two great forces are acting in concert to eliminate local bars and grills from the Kansas City area. Squeezed between the Kansas City Smoking Ban and the influx of subsidized competition from the Power and Light District, local watering holes are dropping like flies.

I should mention, though, that this is not necessarily an entirely bad thing for local epicureans and booze hounds. The establishments that can't survive in this time of increased competition are being weeded out. Often, they are the places that we're tired of anyway. They may offer less than stellar service, or an unimpressive menu. Closing may open opportunities for other establishments to open or for the remaining establishments to redouble their efforts to feed and entertain us.

Gone

• The Granfalloon closed their Northland location
• Schiraz attributed their closing in part to P&L.
• Bar Natasha is closed.
• Tanner's closed their Downtown location, though they're claiming it's not because of the Power and Light District.
• The Studio is now closed. (Thanks for the update, David!)
• Winstead's Downtown location is closed.
• Jilly's
• KC Beer Blog reports that 13th Street Bar and Grill is closed. Update: It's now Tarantino's and is open!
• Paddy O'Quigley's Downtown has closed, but perhaps this was just due to their crummy service.
• Fred P. Ott's in Downtown is closed, though many are saying that this is due to the Smoking Ban
• the Mango Room is now closed
• Mi Cocina on the Plaza closed recently, though there had been some reports of its troubles a while ago, so P&L may have only delivered the deathknell to a mortally injured opponent.

Threatened

• John's Deck is "closed for remodelling", but there seems to be no work going on.
• There are rumors about the Cashew and the Bulldog
• City Tavern and Seven are now closed for lunch. (hat tip)

Sources

• I owe a lot to the KC Beer Blog for mentioning many of the places on this list. Those guys are much more able to keep tabs on the local nightlife than I am these days.
• The KC Rag forum keeps a pretty good running discussion of closed bars and restaurants
• Tony at Tony's Kansas City usually keeps an eye on anything negative about P&L, so sometimes I hear of this news from him.

As always, if you have any information on local businesses suffering from the draw of the P&L District, or anything else in the Kansas City metro area, please don't hesitate to contact me.