With multiple venues closing, does live music have a future in Kansas City’s Westport?
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Silent nights
With multiple venues closing, does live music have a future in Westport?
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The potluck nature of an open blues jam calls for a kind of musical supervisor, and on Tuesday nights at the Westport Saloon for the past eight years, that role has been played by Bill Bartelt, aka Coyote Bill.
At a recent jam, Bartelt and his house band, a trio, kicked things off a little after 9 p.m. with a short set: a boogie romp about alligators in a Louisiana swamp; a bluesed-up cover of Mungo Jerry’s “In the Summertime’‘; a Chicago-style shuffle about a man’s lady kissing another fella, and that ain’t right, and what goes on in the dark will soon become light. The crowd filtered in, a mix of local blues die-hards, Westport rubberneckers and, especially, musicians. Some cozied up to the bar, some beelined straight to the sign-up sheet, eager for Bartelt to call their names and grant them 15 minutes of stage time.
“We’ve built this little thing here where you have musicians of all skill levels and talent levels playing together, getting to know each other,” Bartelt told The Star. “A UMKC Conservatory student gets to share the stage with a 70-year-old pro who’s toured the world. Or somebody who taught themselves to play bass works up the nerve to play in front of people.”
He said part of the joy of running the jam since 2013 has been watching rookie musicians gradually improve, find people to play with and begin to get gigs around town. A music scene needs venues like that, Bartelt said: centralized gathering places that nurture talent.
“You know, it started out as not much, sort of a ‘nothing better to do on Tuesday night’ type of thing. But it’s gotten a little bit, I don’t want to say religious. But this room, the energy in it, the people who come every week: It’s a little bit spiritual.”
Soon, though, this community will have to find a new spiritual home. Owner Travis Fields is closing the Westport Saloon on Dec. 31, he announced last month.
“There’s a multitude of factors,” Fields said of the reasons behind the decision. “But one of them is that the environment around us — Westport — has gotten to a point where I can’t run the business I want to run anymore.”
The former owners of the Riot Room, a block away at 4048 Broadway, are singing a song in a similar key. The music venue, which hosted all manner of rock, metal and hip-hop performances since opening in 2008, didn’t get a chance to say goodbye before abruptly closing on Oct. 1. Owners Tim and Dallas Gutschenritter were still actively booking shows when, they said, their landlord informed them their lease wasn’t being renewed.
The future of 4048 Broadway was put in further doubt last week when a firetruck and SUV slammed into the building, killing three people and reducing some of it to rubble.
COVID-19 was a major blow to their business, Dallas Gutschenritter acknowledged. The Riot Room applied for but didn’t receive a “Save Our Stages” grant through the Small Business Administration. But Westport is also, he said, a lot different today than it was when he and his brother opened the Riot Room 13 years ago.
“We haven’t been too keen on some of the changes that were happening around us,” Gutschenritter said.
Has Westport, as Gutschenritter and Fields suggest, become less hospitable to venues like theirs: scuzzy, beer-soaked, barely breaking even clubs that have long been associated with the entertainment district? Or is Westport’s sudden absence of live music options just a temporary blip caused by COVID-19 and the natural life cycles of performance spaces?
Depends on whom you ask.
Security concerns
Much like his venue, which is booked solid with raucous shows through New Year’s Eve, Fields isn’t going quietly.
In an interview with The Star, Fields traced the beginning of the end for the Saloon back to 2018, when, after a series of shootings in the entertainment district, Westport leaders successfully lobbied the Kansas City Council to privatize the sidewalks there. The move allowed the Westport Regional Business League to erect security barriers at various Westport entry points on weekend nights and use a wand to check patrons for weapons before they entered the district.
“They executed it so poorly,” Fields said of Westport leadership. “It pissed off customers, and a lot of them haven’t returned. It tanked our business almost immediately.”
Fields ticked off an index of grievances. The initial list of items not allowed past security gates included violins, cymbals and electrical gadgets such as guitar pedals and amplifiers. (The list was amended after Fields and others complained. Chesley Brown International, the company hired to oversee Westport security, had apparently copied a list of banned items straight from a Department of Homeland Security website.)
Load-ins and load-outs were also an issue: Acts couldn’t park outside the venue anymore, so they often had to lug heavy equipment for several blocks.
The Westport Regional Business League didn’t seem to get it, Fields said: “At first, they asked me why I couldn’t just provide my own instruments for the bands.”
Kim Kimbrough, executive director of the league, said those initial issues lasted only a few weeks and that they eventually devised a solution whereby musicians used the east end of the Westport alley to get much closer to the Saloon doors.
“They were escorted through with their equipment rather than using the public access gates,” Kimbrough said.
But Fields said musicians were put off. So were customers who parked their cars on the street early in the night before the security gates went up and discovered upon leaving the venue that their vehicles were now stuck inside the gates until 3 a.m.
“I watch this happen on a weekly basis, even now,” Fields said. “They try to leave and get yelled at by security. Those people are never coming back to Westport, and I don’t blame them.”
Julie Bates, who plays in the folk duo The Matchsellers and hosts the Wednesday night Pickin’ Party at the Westport Saloon, said she’s noticed a thinning of crowds for weekend shows in recent years.
“I think music fans are a little less likely to be enthusiastic about Westport lately,” she said. “Honestly, the Saloon is the only reason I go to Westport.”
Fields said his bar sales dropped 43% in the year after the gates went up. To keep paying the bands, he had to start charging a cover fee at the door, something the Saloon hadn’t done in its previous five years of existence. “But of course covers turn a lot of people off,” he said.
Since 2018, the Riot Room hadn’t been allowed to use its front door past 11 p.m. on weekends, because its back entrance opened onto an area inside the security gate — meaning somebody carrying a weapon could in theory bypass security by entering Westport through the Riot Room’s front entrance.
“We’d always done several shows at once — metal inside, EDM on the patio, or whatever — and that (new rule) made things much more challenging for us,” Gutschenritter said.
Fields’ landlord, Bill Nigro, echoed some of that sentiment.
“We’re not as customer-friendly in Westport as we should be,” Nigro said. “Things have gotten real restrictive on the weekends. I’ve been working down here in the service industry since 1977, and I just can’t believe that after Dec. 31, the only live music venue in Westport will be gone.”
New in town
The live music pause won’t be permanent, Westport property owner Larry Goldman is quick to point out. More like a brief intermission.
A large chunk of Goldman’s real estate in the area is soon to be occupied by the Nashville-based outfit Tin Roof. The company, which operates restaurant-bars featuring live music in 17 other cities, previously announced it was moving into 424 Westport Road, formerly home to Sailor Jack’s Snack Shack (and before that, the Foundry).
Goldman told The Star that Tin Roof also plans to take over the Riot Room space next door, though Bob Franklin, CEO of Tin Roof, said he wasn’t ready to make that announcement yet.
“I don’t have a lease,” Franklin told The Star, “but if we were to take it over, we’d do live music there.”
Last week’s crash, which destroyed the part of the building where the Riot Room’s indoor stage was located, is likely to delay any plans for the space, Goldman said.
“We’ve never dealt with a catastrophe like this before, so, yes, it’ll slow us down,” Goldman said. “On the other hand, and I hate to try to put any kind of positive spin on this horrific tragedy, but after we’ve cleaned things up, the building will be newer and slicker and better-made. We’ll move forward.“
Goldman also said the Riot Room’s departure wasn’t as sudden as it seemed.
“The transition was going to occur last year,” he said. “We worked with them through the pandemic, but we always knew this was coming. I don’t think it’s fair to say we booted them out.”
“I think (Goldman) probably had a discussion with Tin Roof where they said, ‘Hey, you can take over this (Riot Room) space as well, if you’re interested,’” Gutschenritter said. “But I don’t know. I wish I knew more about that aspect of it.”
Franklin said renovations to 424 Westport are already underway and that the parking lot outside the former Sailor Jack’s and Riot Room is being converted into patio space for Tin Roof.
“We’ll have a nice shipping container bar out there and lots of seating,” he said. “Inside, we’ll have an all-seasons room that can open up to the outside in cold weather, plus a stage.”
Franklin said the plan is to book a variety of musical acts at Tin Roof: country, rock, pop, indie-rock, Americana. The shows, he said, will be a mix of “original stuff, fun cover bands, theme acts, songwriter nights.” Tin Roof will host some ticketed shows, but cover charges will be mostly limited to those big events and weekend nights.
“We’re not a concert venue,” Franklin said. “We’re a live music joint.”
Asked about the distinction, Franklin said: “Every night of the week, we’ll have live music, but it’s more like the soundtrack in the background to everything.”
That’s a far cry from Fields’ ethos at Westport Saloon and the Gutschenritters’ approach to the Riot Room.
Gutschenritter said he and his brother opened the Riot Room “almost as a kind of moral responsibility.” The space was formerly occupied by the Hurricane, an important staple of the Westport music scene in the 1990s and early 2000s. The Gutschenritters’ former band, National Fire Theory, cut its teeth playing shows at the Hurricane.
“So many good artists and cool things happened in that room that we couldn’t bear to see it sitting there empty,” Gutschenritter said. “We knew what it did for us and our peers and we wanted the Riot Room to do the same for a new generation.”
“The bar scene isn’t where my heart’s ever been,” Fields said. “I really enjoy live performances. Your local music scene is the heartbeat of your city. I wanted to be in that space. Yes, I could have adapted and done late-night DJs like other bars around here. But that’s not why I got into this.”
Money pouring in
In Goldman’s view, the real Westport narrative at this moment isn’t about shuttering music venues. It’s about cash and momentum.
“I don’t think people realize the amount of money being invested in Westport right now,” he said.
Walk around, and it’s there to see. The Westley, which opened its doors last year, offers six floors with 254 luxury living units at the corner of Westport Road and Broadway. A Taco Bell Cantina — a higher-end version of the fast-food chain, offering a full bar, a VIP room and DJs on certain nights — will soon open on the Westley’s ground floor. Across the street, Snooze, an A.M. Eatery, has been serving boozy brunches since early 2020.
The old City Ice House building, at 4144 Pennsylvania, was transformed during the pandemic into Atomic Provisions, a four-tenant funporium that includes two restaurants (Denver Biscuit Company, Fat Sully’s Pizza), a bar (Atomic Cowboy) and an ice-cream concept (Frozen Gold). And a new development erected in 2016 at the southwest corner of Westport Road and Pennsylvania Avenue added an Insomnia Cookies and a Pickleman’s to the Westport mix.
One trait all these new neighbors share: They are not from Kansas City.
The Westley is operated by The Opus Group out of Minneapolis. Taco Bell’s headquarters is in Irvine, California. Both Snooze and Atomic Provisions are Denver-based. And if Tin Roof indeed takes over the old Riot Room, that will mean a Nashville company is moving into two formerly locally operated spaces.
Nigro said he didn’t have any news to share yet about who might move in once Westport Saloon clears out all the Four Roses and Fenders. He also said his entire building at 4112 Pennsylvania Ave. — which includes Fidel’s Cigar Shop and Buzzard Beach in addition to Westport Saloon — might be for sale.
“I’ve received an offer of serious money for it, so I’m seriously considering it,” he said.
Asked whether the offer came from out-of-town investors, Nigro described the interested party as a partnership that includes one local person and one non-local entity. He said if he were to sell, he might “cut off the back for Bruce” — meaning he might continue to rent to Buzzard Beach owner Bruce Vance, or maybe sell that part of the building to him.
“No comment,” Vance told The Star when asked about it.
Kimbrough with the Westport Regional Business League said he had heard Nigro’s building might be up for sale but that he didn’t know anything specific about potential new tenants.
“Would we welcome a music venue in that space? Heck, yeah,” Kimbrough said. “We’re devastated by (Westport Saloon) closing. Travis was a great operator for many years there. Unfortunately, we had a pandemic come along. And I think that’s really the story at Westport Saloon.”
Outside of Westport, music venues continue to come and go. Nighthawk recently opened in the basement of Hotel Kansas City downtown, though it hosts live music only on Friday and Saturday nights. Deep Space, a musician-friendly Crossroads co-op, has been booking shows of late, but its operators have been told that the building will likely be demolished in the next year. Davey’s Uptown Ramblers Club still has not reopened following a March 2020 fire. Owner Michelle Markowitz declined to comment on what the future holds for the venue.
As for Coyote Bill, he’s starting a new blues jam. It’s on Thursdays at Madison’s (formerly The Point), several blocks west of Westport.
“It won’t be the same, but hopefully we can build something cool there, too,” he said. “Westport, man. It’s always changing. When I first moved here, it seemed like every place in Westport had live music. But who knows? Maybe in a few years, it’ll swing back.”
Fields isn’t so sure. Asked about what he’d like to see go into the Westport Saloon space once he moves out, he snorted and said, “Well, they already got a Taco Bell Cantina. Maybe a Burger King Whopper Bar?”
