New upscale sports bar in Kansas City: ‘It feels like a great time to open’
A longtime Waldo restaurant space has been remodeled again, bringing a sports bar concept back to the area but one with an upscale feel, live music and Nashville hot chicken.
“It will be a place where people can hang out early in the day to late at night,” said Shawn Larson, co-owner with Tyler Humar. “We’re really excited because it feels like a great time to open. People are out and about.”
Social, at 7425 Broadway, offers tacos, burgers, salads, entrees and appetizers including wings and nachos.
Its Midwest taco comes with chopped burnt ends, house-made chipotle, coleslaw, shredded cheese and jalapeno ranch dressing, chips and salsa, guacamole or cilantro lime rice. The Popper burger has bacon jam and jalapeno honey cream cheese with a sriracha aioli on a toasted bun.
Specialties include the Nashville hot chicken — fried chicken breast tossed in house-made Nashville sauce with coleslaw, its secret Social sauce and pickles on toasted Texas toast with a choice of side. Other entrees include garlic butter shrimp linguine, and Kansas City macaroni and cheese with pepper jack queso, barbecue burnt ends and green onions.
It also will have daily specials and happy hour specials, and will start offering brunch on Saturdays and Sundays in mid-to-late June.
The space had been home to a drug store and printing shop in the 1960s. City Light restaurant and bar later operated there before Tanner’s took over in 1991. It closed in late 2018 to focus on its other locations.
Brick + Mortar did a major remodeling before opening in mid-2019 as an “elegant-casual” restaurant. But it closed a year later.
Humar and Larson spent about five months on another major remodel of the space.
“A sports bar has been missing in Waldo since Tanner’s left,” Larson said.
Larson was previously a partner in Sol Cantina in Martini Corner and the former Homeslice Pizza & Pints in the Crossroads. Humar owns Brick House in midtown’s Martini Corner.
They met as bartenders, became friends and now business partners.
Social has large screen TVs, a sit-down shuffleboard table, darts and live music or DJs on Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights.
Hours: 11 a.m. to 3 a.m. Wednesdays through Saturdays, and 11 a.m. to midnight Sundays through Tuesdays.
This story was originally published May 22, 2021 at 5:00 AM.