This Johnson County bar is up for a James Beard Award — for the second year in a row
Jay Sanders should be used to it by now.
It happened last year, too: His Shawnee bar, Drastic Measures, made the James Beard Award semifinalist list.
He’d tried to prepare his staff before the 2024 list came out, saying they had “no shot” of being nominated for the award — the Oscars of the restaurant industry — two years in a row. But on Wednesday, he found out Drastic is in the running for “Outstanding Bar.”
Again.
“I guess I’m eating my words on that one,” Sanders said.
Last year, his cocktail bar advanced to become a finalist in the same category, falling one step short of a win.
This year, Drastic Measures was among seven Kansas City area chefs and restaurants on the semifinalist list, but the only one to do so in back-to-back years.
Sanders is humbled, adding he’s not completely convinced that they’re worthy of the accolades. (He doesn’t even think they’re the best bar in Kansas City. That’s Hi-Dive Lounge on West 39th Street, he said.)
But his employees are thrilled.
On April 3, Sanders will find out whether Drastic Measures is a two-time finalist. The winner will be announced on June 10 at the Lyric Opera of Chicago.
The Drastic team attended the ceremony last year, gussied up and seated next to the country’s most prominent chefs and food critics.
“I think our staff walked away from it feeling real juiced,” he said. “Some places have been open for 20 years and never get the nomination. We’ve been open for four and got two.”
Sanders opened Drastic in the summer of 2020 at 5817 Nieman Road, an area that’s quickly become a hot spot for bars.
His bar is in a 1,000-plus-square-foot room in an 1850s stone building. The rotating cocktail menu currently includes the “Teaches of Peaches,” named after feminist rock musician Peaches. It contains epazote-infused tequila with aquavit peach, topped with dill and peach juice foam.
Last summer, Sanders opened another bar next door called Wild Child, focusing more on nonalcoholic drinks, like vacuum-distilled, booze-free Negronis.
Wild Child is making a name for itself, too. Vox-owned food magazine Punch included the bar on its “Best New Bars 2023” list.
Of course, Sanders would be thrilled if he took home a James Beard Award this year. Though a nomination itself is an honor. Whatever the outcome, the philanthropic, social justice-focused theme of the bar will remain unchanged. Drastic gave tens of thousands to local charities over the past year.
“We’re just trying to instill the message of, ‘Just keep doing what we’re doing,’” Sanders said. “‘Don’t let it go to your head.’”
The other area restaurants and chefs that were nominated: Affäre for Outstanding Wine and Other Beverages Program; Jeff Workman of The Campground for Best Emerging Chef; Romain Monnoyeur of Westport Cafe, Katie Liu-Sung of Chewology and Johnny Leach of The Town Company for Best Chef (all in Kansas City); and Rozz Petrozz of Saltwell Farm Kitchen in Overbrook, Kansas, also for Best Chef.