It looks like a regular convenience store, but new Johnson County spot hides boozy secret
Common Tiger in Mission is definitely just a regular convenience store. Nothing to see here.
At least, that’s what Abby Hans would have you believe.
Give one of her employees standing behind the counter a password, however, and they’ll push open a heavy steel door disguised as an ice cooler. There, a disco ball spins in a dark, narrow walkway.
Suspicious.
Push another door open, and Common Tiger’s true stripes are revealed.
The convenience store, with a few shelves of assorted snacks and a long cooler, is really just a ruse for a clandestine bar. Past the doorway, Common Tiger is adorned with velvet couches, creeping foliage and butterflies.
Hans opened the space at 5616 Johnson Drive a couple weeks ago, announcing it via a cryptic post on the Instagram page of her other bar, The Primrose.
Under a photo of a cocktail, the post reads: “ThiS drink was Put on the mEnu As Kind of an EASter egg alluding to our quirkY concept. We’re opening a convenience store two doors down.”
Another hint from the bar is left in a comment: “Ask the cashier for ice.”
Hans, 27, said the facade has already fooled a few patrons.
“We’ve had a couple people come in, buy stuff, not ask about anything else,” she said. “They thought it was just a little store.”
(And yes, the Spam, soda, almond butter and other snacks on the shelves actually are for sale.)
But of course, the real attraction is Common Tiger’s cocktail menu, which includes the Te’killa Coffee (blanco tequila, cold brew, kahlua, cinnamon, vanilla and aztec chocolate bitters) and Tiger’s Blood (mean mule poblano agave spirit, grapefruit, blood orange liqueur, lime and grapefruit soda).
All of the bar’s specialty cocktail drinks are $14.
Hans is already cooking up events and pop-ups for the future: a haunted house in October, a ski-lodge themed bar in the winter.
“There’s a lot of room for creativity here,” she said.
The speakeasy is a family affair. Her brother, 30-year-old Mason Hans, and parents, Julie and Jason Hans, are also owners.
And get this: Mason has run Mission: Board Games next door at 5606 Johnson Drive since 2016. Then, Julie and Jason Hans opened Urban Prairie Coffee next to the board games store in 2018.
In 2022, Abby opened cocktail bar The Primrose a few doors down from the coffee shop and board games store.
“It’s fun because we all have such different personalities and interests, so when we come together, we have some cool ideas,” she said.
When another space in the same strip opened up, the Hans family knew they wanted to do something to appeal to the neighborhood, which is increasingly becoming younger and more social.
But it felt silly to open up something just like The Primrose next to it. So — speakeasy.
While The Primrose is more intimate and upscale, Common Tiger is more casual. A large standing space in the back of the bar allows patrons to mix and mingle with others.
As for the name, Abby Hans was searching for themes when she came across the nickname for the monarch butterfly: the common tiger. “Perfect,” she thought. “Who doesn’t love tigers?”
It took a few months to transform the narrow space that used to be a salon into a secret bar. But the old waiting room made for the perfect entrance.
“From the front, you don’t realize how deep it goes,” Hans said.
Thanks to the momentum already built with The Primrose, it’s caught on quickly. Many customers have simply seen groups walking into the “convenience store” and stumbled in, wanting to know more.
But the best buzz comes from word of mouth, in true speakeasy fashion.
Common Tiger is open 6 p.m. to midnight Fridays and Saturdays.
In March, a blacksmith-themed speakeasy opened in Gardner, called The Forge, at 117 S. Elm St. There, customers must pick up an old rotary phone and give the operator a password.
There are a few other similar concepts farther north in Kansas City, like 1930s-style P.S. in the basement of Hotel Phillips at 106. W. 12th St.