A giant fork & mini golf: Explore Missouri like Chappell Roan as star takes KC
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Chappell Roan’s 2023 video featured Springfield landmarks to honor hometown roots
- Springfield now offers fans a self-guided tour of sites from 'Hot To Go!'
- You can get in touch with Chappell’s history with murals, monuments and custard collabs
A little-known fact about Chappell Roan: She wears Silver Dollar City T-shirts around the house. The 1880s-themed amusement park is not far from where she grew up near Springfield, Missouri, nestled in Ozarks country.
Roan is a celebrity who proudly (and literally) wears her hometown roots on her sleeve. Think Jason Sudeikis, who grew up in Johnson County and made Kansas key to the “Ted Lasso” story, even filming some of the upcoming season in Kansas City.
Roan did something similar with the video for her 2023 monster hit, “Hot To Go!” Filmed in Springfield, the “big city” to her rural hometown of Willard, the video featured several of the city’s landmarks.
It was a quirky, sentimental valentine to small-town life, monster trucks and all, from the superstar who calls herself the “Midwest Princess.”
When the video came out, Springfield’s tourism folks asked their suddenly famous musical daughter to name her favorite things to see and do in the area, creating a Chappell Roan pilgrimage for fans wanting to know where her story began.
“Take your own self-guided tour with our guide,” Visit Springfield invited on its website.
Freelance writer Miranda Mullings created a similar guide last year for travel website Thrillist.
“Despite being in the middle of so-called flyover country — and often being considered the ‘Buckle of the Bible Belt’ — Springfield has more than enough to see, eat, and do to fill a weekend,” wrote the self-described “Zillennial Springfieldian.”
A side trip to Springfield is quite doable for fans popping into Kansas City this week for one of Roan’s concerts — one of only three sites for the mini-tour. She will perform Friday and Saturday on the lawn area in front of the Liberty Memorial and the National World War I Museum and Memorial.
Springfield is about 165 miles from Kansas City, about a 2 1/2 hour drive away.
Check it out. Selfies await.
Fun Acre Mini Golf
In the “Hot To Go!” video, Roan plays nighttime miniature golf at Fun Acre, one of Springfield’s oldest and best-known miniature golf courses where a statue of Dino, the dinosaur mascot of Sinclair gas stations, guards the sixth hole.
She posted a photo of herself at Fun Acre while the video was being made, writing on Instagram, “i’m being annoying and blocking the minigolf course to take a (bleeping) picture.”
“Have you really visited Springfield if you haven’t gone to Fun Acre?” the city’s tourism promoters ponder on Facebook.
The 18-hole mini-golf course is an old-school throwback still popular with locals. It might not have modern bells and whistles, but how many have hosted a Grammy winner? And how many only charge $3 a round for adults?
Just keep in mind that the place only takes cash and “pre-approved checks.” Old-school enough for you?
Gillioz Theatre
You have to wonder whether Roan ever dreamed about seeing her name in lights in her hometown. She made it happen. By now her name has glowed several times on the marquee of Springfield’s historic Gillioz Theatre.
The nearly 100-year-old theater underwent a restoration in 2006.
“Your first stop should be to see a show at the historic Gillioz Theatre, where Chappell performed before she made it big,” Mullings wrote. “It was there ... she kicked off her international tour with a free show.
“The Gillioz usually has an artist performing or a popular local event, like the annual interactive ‘Rocky Horror Picture Show’ screening, but if not, you can take a tour of the theater.”
Giant fork
The giant fork Roan cavorts in front of in “Hot To Go!” is not a prop. It’s a real thing, a 35-foot-tall stainless steel fork that weighs about 11 tons.
It was created in the 1990s by Noble and Associates advertising firm for a local Mexican restaurant. When the restaurant closed, the company stuck it in the ground in front of its own building.
Tourism officials say it’s not easily seen from the street, but people still manage to find it for “memorable photos.”
And MTV videos.
Quick question: What is it with Springfield’s obsession with bigger-than-life things? And we’re not talking just forks and Chappell Roan.
There’s a 20-foot-long, bright yellow noodle that looks like a smile at the Kraft Heinz factory. It bears a message: “You know you love it.” It’s behind a fence and you can’t park close so it’s not an easy selfie to grab.
But you can get up close to the 42-foot-long, steel and aluminum golf club — said to be the world’s largest — at the Swing Right golf club just outside town.
Andy’s Frozen Custard
“All the best evenings in Springfield end at Andy’s Frozen Custard,” Mullings wrote. “In her music video, Chappell leads a crowd in the HOT TO GO! dance in front of the Andy’s location on East Sunshine Street.”
Springfield is home to Andy’s headquarters and several locations.
Roan is such a fan she once collaborated with the custard shop to create limited-edition concrete flavors, including the Midwest Princess (dark chocolate, white chocolate, Dutch chocolate, and strawberry cake) and Pink Pony Club, a cotton candy concoction with frosted animal crackers.
In case you can’t make it to Springfield, Kansas City is home to more than a dozen Andy’s locations.
Roan’s favorite order is still on the menu — the James Brownie Funky Jackhammer, a combination of peanut butter, hot fudge, brownies and vanilla frozen custard.
She has great taste.
Wild horses mural
The mural of wild horses seen in the “Hot To Go!” video is painted on the back of the Alamo Drafthouse movie theater in Springfield. The 30-foot-by-300-foot painting was created by Springfield sculptor/painter Susan Sommer-Luarca, known as “Artist of the Horse.”
But there’s a new mural of the singer herself in Springfield now. Over the summer, Hollister, Missouri artist Christine Riutzel finished a mural inside the city’s new La Roux Bistro. It is a colorful bayou scene featuring Roan and a figure inspired by drag queen Sasha Colby.
The image of Roan was inspired by the burlesque dragonfly costume she wore on “Saturday Night Live” in November.
“I wanted Chappell because she’s a local artist, if you break it down, and I like how her mission is to elevate drag to an art form, to point out that it’s not just about the trans community,” restaurant owner Joseph Gidman told the Springfield News-Leader. “She herself is not trans, but she considers herself a drag queen, so it’s taking that and elevating it to the level of art. We wanted to honor that.”
Riutzel, by the way, also helped paint a new mural of Roan outside of Hamburger Mary’s in midtown Kansas City ahead of this week’s concerts.
Sinclair gas station
The vintage Sinclair gas station Roan dances in front of in “Hot To Go!” is “a bit out of town but worth the drive if you’re into Route 66 memorabilia,” Mullings suggested.
Known as the Gay Parita Sinclair, it is an attraction on historic Route 66 near Halltown, Missouri, about 20 miles west of Springfield.
The 1930 gas station was restored by former entertainer Gary Turner and his brother-in-law after it was destroyed by a fire in 1955.
Tourists from around the world visit. Visitors have left stickers in the windows showing where they have traveled from.
It’s more than just a spot in the road.
On the famous byway out front, a large white Route 66 emblem is painted on the road.
Springfield is known as the “birthplace of Route 66,” which celebrates 100 years next year.
“This may sound like a bold claim, considering that the route begins and ends in Chicago and Los Angeles,” says the website of the city’s History Museum on the Square. “While our city is not the start of the physical highway, it is where the name was finalized.”
But thanks to a certain Midwest Princess, all roads lead to Kansas City this week.
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