Courtyard bar in KC is finally open again, with Snaggle Puss cocktails and, soon, food
Since opening four years ago, the verdant West Side courtyard bar Panthers Place has kept a loose, seasonal schedule, typically firing up its operations sometime in the spring and shutting things down around the holidays.
This year, though, Panthers Place stayed dormant.
“There were a lot of moving parts,” said Ryan Gale, who owns the bar as well as the property on which it sits. “The building is on the market, and we weren’t sure if whoever we sold it to would let (Panthers Place) lease it back. So we didn’t want to start things up this year and then have to shut it down.”
The property is now under contract, Gale said, and the soon-to-be owner — Gale declined to say who — is letting the bar stay on.
So, as of a few weeks ago, the indoor-outdoor hideaway covered in vines and yard art is back open on Friday and Saturday nights, 6 p.m. to 1:30 a.m. (To find it, look for the shipping containers just past the Airstream trailer parked at 1000 W. 25th St.)
Panthers Place is connected to a kitchen on the same property. That space was previously home to Speak Sandwiches, Poi-O Mexican BBQ and most recently Outpost Social Club.
Gale said that Billie’s Grocery is in the process of remodeling the kitchen and plans to open a concept there later this year.
“We do a lot of private events and parties and pop-ups, and all the food for those events already comes from Billie’s,” Gale said. “They’ll do prepackaged food here and some other things.”
Billie’s Grocery didn’t respond to a request for comment.
Panthers Place serves beer, wine and a few specialty cocktails like the Boat Drink (pineapple, coconut, orange juice, rum and nutmeg) and the Snaggle Puss (tequila, rosé, ginger beer, lime juice). It opened in June 2019 and had previously been a courtyard space for Gale’s property management company.
Because the bar sometimes hosts private events, Gale said the best way to make sure Panthers Place is open is to check for a daily post on its Instagram page, @panthersplacekc.
