KC cocktail bar closes abruptly but ‘temporarily’ after shooting — surprising staff
The cocktail bar SoT announced Tuesday on Instagram that it would be “temporarily closing” its Crossroads location at 1521 Grand Blvd.
“Our team will be working hard to refresh our space and refine our offerings,” SoT’s owners wrote. “Every detail is being rethought with your enjoyment in mind, from the look of the place to the drinks we serve.”
The decision followed a Saturday night shooting on Grand that left four injured and a bullet hole in SoT’s front window.
It also surprised some of SoT’s staff, a few of whom took to social media to say they hadn’t been told of the closing.
“I clicked on Instagram this afternoon and saw a post from our social media that we were closing our doors and wouldn’t be opening again for the near future, all before they even told any of us staff members or our GM,” one employee wrote on Facebook.
SoT’s website, sotkc.com, was also briefly hacked Tuesday.
“We fired our staff through Instagram lol,” read the home page. (The text has since been removed, and SoT has disabled comments on its Instagram post.)
Matt Abbott, who owns both SoT and its building, did not respond to requests for comment about how the staff was notified or when the bar is expected to reopen.
Local photographer Ron Berg opened SoT in 2016, serving interactive cocktails that incorporated molecular gastronomy. He sold the business to Abbott in 2018.
The bar made national headlines in 2021 after it responded on its Facebook page to Jackson Mahomes, brother of Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes, telling his social media followers that he’d had a bad experience at SoT.
“We survived a pandemic, we’ll survive your ego,” the bar wrote.
