BOOTH 13

I remember the first time Emery flew on his own. We walked him to the gate, gave him upwards of 90 somewhat nervous hugs and then watched him walk down the jetway until he was out of sight. At which time, I burst into tears. I remember there was a nice young man in a cast waiting to pre-board and he said, "oh wow, mom, you're like, legit crying." Well, as time has passed, the crying has stopped, the nervousness has declined a touch and the excitement... has grown. This is the week that Jon and I get to just be Jon and Jeanine, husband and wife, not mom and dad. We have date night every night and we reconnect. With food. And beer. Oh yeah- and with each other! This year, I was at work when Emery left. 4 hours and 20 minutes later: And so our week begins. :) Friday - Stockyards Brewing Co. tap takeover at The Lone Elm Taproom Stockyards is great. Highly recommend going to the brewery. Although a nearby tap takeover at one of our favorite spots is super c...

Now, what kind of KC girl would I be if I didn't weigh in with some thoughts about barbecue? Barbeque? BBQ? No matter how you spell it, if you live here, you'd better have an opinion on it. The amount of time between Jon finding out he was being transferred to Kansas City and the day the moving truck showed up was about 3 weeks. During that time of telling our fellow Coloradans we were moving to Kansas City, the response almost certainly was, "well, I hear they have good BBQ there." We must have heard this upwards of 30 times in those 3 weeks. We heard this so much that one day I overheard my 4 year old son say to my neighbor, "yeah, I hear they have good BBQ there." Within 48 hours though, we began to make the rounds. Our first stop was Arthur Bryants, where I first began to embarrass my family with professing my love for sausage. (I have been known in the past 7 years to say things like, "that's some good-looking sausage," "I LOVE sa...

Lone Elm Taproom is a place that Jon and I have spent many happy hours at, and a place we've sent many people to. For the longest time it had THE best happy hour in town- 1/2 off all beers and all the beers are local. Or mostly local. The furthest I think I've seen is maybe from as far away as Schlafly or Lucky Bucket, but mostly it's Boulevard, Torn Label, Martin City, KC Bier, Free State... you know, all the staples. And speaking of staples, they had pretty good food specials each day too. Then, a couple weeks ago, Jon and I plan a special pilgrimage to this little gem of a bar, tucked inside the Whole Foods on 119th in Olathe. We decided to also grab a bite to eat from the prepared, and will prepare for you, food area, conveniently located right next to the bar, then we'll do a little grocery shopping when we're done. We walked into the bar, checked the specials board and stood there like we just witnessed an accident. What the hell happened to the specials!?!...

Perhaps it was because I went straight from work to my son's basketball game. Perhaps it was because the basketball game ended a little too late to be going home and cooking. Or perhaps we just didn't plan ahead well enough. No matter the reason, we once again find ourselves with a desire to eat out on a Friday night. Have we learned nothing? No, we did learn something, I promise. Instead of heading to a busy sit-down restaurant, we decided to go Fast Casual. In case you don't have the joy of living with a full-on restaurant nerd and aren't sure exactly what Fast Casual is- it's all those restaurants where you walk in and have to immediately turn left and walk around the outskirts of the restaurant (menu along the way somewhere, either on the wall or in a little cubby, or both) and arrive at a counter where you either order or progressively build your meal buffet style, except you're not aloud to touch the food. Ok, I jest- you don't always turn left and w...

2:30 in the morning. Omaha, Nebraska. After a late night, a traveling district manager walks into a gas station, not sure what to expect at this hour. He opens the door to bright lights, a clean atmosphere and two upbeat smiling employees, who greet him cheerily. So he assumes what anyone would... they must be getting robbed. Naturally, right? Well, they weren't getting robbed, they were just happily doing their jobs the way most QuikTrip employees do. And thus began the greatest love affair of my husband's life. For this episode of Booth 13, I thought it might be fun to give you a little insight into Jon and I and what makes us tick. We are huge fans of breweries, Mexican food, pizza, food trucks, beer, burgers, pubs, sushi, beer, bagels, donuts, and... um, did I mention... beer? However, with all this variety, and all the times I've been asked, or thought about, what our favorite places are, the two places I realize that we frequent the most? QuikTrip  and Dunkin' D...

Late October, back in Seventeen What a very special time for me As I remember (and always will), what a night... We really should have known better. If anyone reading this is one of those lucky (insert laughing, crying, eye-rolling emoji here) friends who has had the intense pleasure of working in restaurants, you know better too. You never- NEVER- go out to a restaurant on a FRIDAY night. Ever. I realize to a majority of you this may seem asinine to say, since, duh- that is THE night to go out. And God bless you, sincerely, for keeping the rest of us in apartments and houses and clothes and hot water all these years. Friday nights are the bread and butter and the bringing' home the bacon of the those who work in restaurants. But if it's before 10pm on a Friday, and we're not wearing an apron, name tag or logo-ed shirt of some sort, you won't see us in a restaurant. Nonetheless- there we were. We even had the gall to think we were so clever when we called ahead...

For a long time, I have been trying to convince Jon that we should write a blog. Mostly the conversation has always ended up with no. Why? There are so many blogs out there. Who in the world would care what we have to say. Well. Tonight I have finally been pushed to Yes. We're doing this. I don't care if no one ends up reading this- we are doing this. Because if nothing else, it will be cathartic to say the things we have to say and fling them out into Internet World, instead of keeping it to ourselves. Jon and I (mostly Jon) have worked and lived in the world of restaurants for many years. We have seen it, done it, experienced it all. Or so it feels. Jon's last job required him to frequently scope out the competition, and that's really where the fun began. We would pop into restaurants and bars at least once, and sometimes several times, a week. We scrutinized atmosphere, employees, food, happy hour specials, bathrooms, all of it. With more than half his life now spe...