New Kansas City venue: Basement speakeasy. Rooftop bartenders dressed as lifeguards?

A prime Westport corner — dark during the pandemic — will get new life as a multilevel entertainment venue and restaurant.

Fountain Haus will open at 401 Westport Road in early 2022. It is taking the 13,000-square-foot, three-level former home of HopCat and TikiCat.

Owners David Brinkerhoff and Ryan Overberg (managing partners), and Brinkerhoff’s husband, Dan Meiners, said it will be a place for the LGBTQ community and its allies to gather and have a variety of experiences in one building.

“You can barhop without leaving the building,” Overberg said. “You can start your night in the speakeasy with a nice cocktail, go dance, go to the rooftop to get some fresh air, go grab a bite to eat.”

The four components:

The Cube. HopCat’s back dining room will be used for cabarets, birthday parties, fundraisers, corporate get-togethers and more.

But from Thursdays to Saturdays it will be a dance club. The owners are applying for a 3 a.m. liquor license.

The Cube is scheduled to open in late January.

Pool Deck. There’s no pool on the roof, but the owners want to create a mid-century Palm Springs poolside vibe with bartenders dressed like lifeguards.

“They are there to save you with a drink,” Overberg said. “There will be a playfulness to it, there could be entertainment, there could be dancing, maybe a tea dance on Saturday or Sunday afternoon.”

It will open just before or on St. Patrick’s Day.

The Siren. The former TikiCat, a tiki bar in the basement with 1960s furniture and thatched ceiling, will be revamped for a sophisticated “speakeasy.” It will have its own food and cocktail menus.

“Elevated, swanky. The sirens sank the ship so they would have a place to hang out and now they are letting us into their hidden world, but just for a little bit,” Overberg said.

It is scheduled to open in April.

▪ The Pump Room. While customers can eat throughout the facility, this will be the full-service restaurant serving dinner daily, including wasabi-crusted salmon, brisket macaroni and cheese egg-rolls with jalapeno ranch dressing, and jicama tacos. It will also serve brunch on Saturdays and Sundays; and happy hour. It will have an entrance on Westport Road.

The name refers to a fountain/water pump with good energy flowing through all the rooms. It also will have some outdoor seating along Broadway.

Fountain Haus will have 20 to 30 employees and is currently accepting applications for bartenders, servers, managers and talent (singers, dancers, comedians, and drag queens and kings). It also will have its own security team and is working on parking options.

Brinkerhoff has spent more than 30 years in the commercial insurance business, specializing in hospitality and real estate. He retired in 2019.

Brinkerhoff and Meiners have owned and operated Studio Dan Meiners, a full-service event design and floral company, since 2010.

Overberg has spent nearly 20 years in the hospitality industry, from server to manager. He most recently was entertainment director at Therapy lounge in New York. He also has been a professional performer for 20 years.

“So we will spend the money to make sure sound and lighting are topnotch,” he said.

The name is a play on Kansas City’s “City of Fountains” designation. So the official grand opening in April will be tied to Fountain Day events. The metro has more than 200 fountains lining the city’s courtyards, plazas and boulevards.

The former HopCat site, at Broadway and Westport Road, had previously housed a Peachwave Yogurt and then a Starbucks. But the building was demolished for the $2.5 million, multi-level building for HopCat.

HopCat closed during the pandemic shelter-in-place order and never reopened.

Westport also will be home to a new Taco Bell Cantina, opening just across Broadway from Fountain Haus, and work has resumed on Tin Roof, just across Westport Road.

This story was originally published November 19, 2021 at 5:00 AM.