Wednesday, November 26, 2008

Gifted And Talented

T'was the day before turkey, but old Danta Claus is thinking ahead to the next batch of holidays. And he's got the perfect gift idea for your Christmas, Hanukkah, Winter Solstice, Kwanzaa, Zarathosht Diso or whatever else you might be celebrating in the coming weeks.

The gift that keeps on giving: whiskey. Or wine. Or whatever your giftee wants filling up the space in his or her (or your, for that matter) whiskey locker at Raglan Road Irish Restaurant and Pub downtown. Here's how it works. You lease your wood, beveled glass and brass locker in the Whiskey Room at Raglan. You tell the bar management what you'd like it stocked with. You get the key to your own private pub, with your name and whatever else you ask for on a shiny brass plaque on the front. Come in, open your locker (there are glasses in there too) and never have to wait for your pour. It's yours, it's paid for, enjoy.

I was at Raglan last night perusing the wonderful wall o' whiskey. Through the glass doors the claimed lockers are a smorgasbord of the Uisce Beatha: Jameson, Power's, Middleton, Red Breast. On the brass tags some familiar names: Irish Fest director Rory O'Connor. Kansas City Southern Railroad boss Michael Haverty. The seven O'Neill brothers. Elders frontman Ian Byrne, whose name plaque declares, correctly, "Life Is Good." Even outgoing Irish Fest president Ed Scanlon, whose brass plaque proudly proclaims him "Founder, Kansas City Irish Fest."

A lot of lockers are taken, but yours is waiting. Call Scott Hastings at Raglan, 816-994-9700 or e-mail him here and get the details. Or ask next time your there and pick out yours personally. Don't get locked out.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Uh, "Founder"?

Danny Regan said...

Well, yeah, absolutely. Not alone in that distinction, but a founder nonetheless.

Anonymous said...

Hello Anonymous, I would love to have a drink with you, and the other founders of the Irish Fest, Dan Regan, Pat O'Neill, Kyle Kelly, Bob Sullivan, Patti Aylward, Ed Follis and myself. We can have a wonderful time discussing sitting in Kyle's kitchen and how the festival was conceived by merging the two festivals of Brookside and Westport. How we worked to survive the giant rain out at Berkley Park. And if we have enough drinks we can tell you about sitting around the Scanlon dinning room table creating the Brookside Irish fest. Yep there are founder of the Festival. And somehow that ended up on my plaque. Is it correct? Damn right. Am I proud of it? Hell yes I could not be more proud than to call all the founders my friends. Am I embarrassed that it is on the plaque? Oh hell yes.
And now that I'm retired I will be hanging out at the festival with the rest of the retired founders.

Ed Scanlon
One of the Founders.

Anonymous said...

.....and will this explanation of FOUNDER hang under your plaque at Raglan Road as not to insult the rest of the people who have worked on both festivals for the last 10 years?