Fathers

Father's Day is this weekend. Appropriately, I ran into one of the fathers of the Kansas City Irish Fest last evening. Kyle Kelly, proprietor of the landmark Kelly's Westport Inn was the founder of the Westport Irish Festival which ran from 1999 to 2002 (coincidentally that event was held over Father's Day weekend the first year before moving to Memorial Day weekend) and it was at his kitchen counter that the Kansas City Irish Fest was officially born with the merger of the Westport and Brookside festivals. I'm very proud to say that I was present for that momentous occasion. Kyle is one of the truly good guys in Kansas City and while I spend a lot of time here exhorting you to go to various bars and pubs around town for Irish music, this weekend, why not stop into Kelly's? Better yet, take your dad in. Kelly's was after all founded by Kyle's dad, Clare man Randal Kelly. It's a dad kind of place. And while there may not be an Irish troubador crooning in the corner, but you'd be hard pressed to find a more Irish spot in Kansas City.

Kelly's, as if you didn't know, is in K.C.'s oldest building at the corner of Westport and Penn.