bairnsidhe

 Okay, so my favorite bar ever recently moved and had their members-only soft open last night, so time for a review.

To start with, Pawn and Pint is a combination game-store and bar, with over a thousand board games to play any of, as long as you like, for the low cover charge of five dollars.  Recently they'd been in a location where a liquor license was proving hard to obtain, but they got it for the new place and hence the move.  So I already think the idea is amazing, and that's just a bias that's going to show up.

On to the new digs!

Size: 8/10.  It's much bigger, with three levels, an open floor about the same size as the old place's main gaming area, a bar, and a mezzanine with room for maybe 25 people.  The space is well used, not a lot of wasted corners, and the bathroom size is a big step up (from two single-rooms to a three-seater in the ladies room, no idea how the men's room looked).  Points off though, because the room had a high enough ceiling that someone needed to install some acoustic baffles and didn't, which falls into improper use of space for me.

Drinks: 9/10.  Very good stuff, I found a delightful pear cider that I liked a lot, and had a mixed drink, the Sole Survivor (bonus points for all the references in drink naming) which was tasty and strong.  It hit all three of my drink requirements, it was pretty (a lovely blue color with a nice foam top) it tasted more like fruit than booze (pineapple was the predominate taste, but also a vaguely cream-cake undertone, too) and it got me drunk enough on one drink I didn't feel like getting a second.  Moderation is your friend.  Points were lost on familiarity of staff with the cocktail menu, but I think that will smooth itself out in time.

Staff: 10/10.  Lovely people, even when running about like chickens with their heads chopped off.  Ed (Owner 1) made the time to reassure me that my favorite soda, Atomic Fizz, would be in stock again soon.  John (Owner 2) made sure I didn't leave my purse on a table by accident.  Natalie (Hostess with the Mostess) kept the bar staff moving on drinks and did rounds to make sure everyone had what they needed, and the new staff for the opened areas were accommodating to the socially awkward geeks who drink there.

Price: 9/10.  Reasonable, especially with the cover-fee plus drinks model.  The restaurant next door does delivery and they're pricier than I care for, but the cheap tasty food delivery service we used at the old place still covers the new place and P&P isn't exclusive to their neighbors for food options.

Clientele: 10/10.  It may seem unfair to judge the place based on who walks in, but you know a good place when everyone you speak to hits that "old friend I'm meeting for the first time" button.  Nobody was rude, even the VERY drunk frat guy only wanted to play with the little worker-cubes from Yoko Hama and gave them back when asked.  Also, I met a lovely person who'd dyed their hair grey and purple for Ace Pride, and that turned into a conversation about media representation and a sale for my novel, Ellie and the Magic Oak (obligatory plug here, the MC is a demi-ro Princess and her childhood BFF is undefined queer-spectrum as well).  It's a good bar when ace people can talk openly about being ace and nobody hits on either of them.

Over all, amazing and if anyone is in the Kansas City Metro sometime, I recommend looking up Pawn and Pint to give them a try.

 So I stopped by the park near my therapist's office on Monday, and WOW.  This is by far the best small neighborhood park I've ever seen.  For starters, it's accessible.

That's right, a park, like with play equipment and swings and stuff, is HANDICAP ACCESSIBLE.  There's a wheelchair ramp built into the climbing equipment so that people with mobility issues can reach at least half if not 90% of the play area that's above ground level.  It's not a huge ugly metal thing that gets in the way, either, it's just a neat concrete gangway sandwiched between the Pirate Ship and the Jungle Gym.  Also for those in wheelchairs is an arm-runner, one of those pedal-like contraptions placed at eye level with an adult sitting in a chair, that you can use to work out your arms.  Except, instead of being grey and medical-looking, it's bright yellow like the Jungle Gym and I saw able-seeming kids using it while standing, because it was treated like any other part of the park.

Speaking of treating accessibility like you'd treat anything else, you know those letter-boards that some Jungle Gyms have, to help kids learn the alphabet?  This park had one that was doubled below the letters in Braille.  The letters were nicely tactile, too, so feeling up the wall seemed perfectly normal.  Add to that the fact that the entrance had animal-shaped statues signing the letters W-E-L-C-O-M-E, and it felt like this was the sort of playground you find on Sesame Street.

(Actually, it felt like the sort of playground you'd find in the Terramagne setting by ysabetwordsmith .)

Also, the park had two structures that introduce improved social play and age-appropriate risk.  One was a three-way spring horse teeter-totter, which yes, you can use alone, but it's more balanced with two or three.  I miss spring horses, they kept getting removed in the push to kid-proof parks, and I think that's ridiculous.  A certain amount of risk, falling off play equipment, and learning not to stick body parts in machinery because we all know what happened to Jimmy's cousin's best friend, is good for kids.  But I digress.  The last structure was the best, it was a tilted circle, on which you sat and it rotated.  One person couldn't get it going that fast, but the more people, the better it worked, especially when two or more adult-sized folks got on it with the kids to maintain speed.  People fell off, it's made for that, but the ground cover was a nicely squashy rubber affair that would prevent most broken bones, and the way it was designed, you can't get dragged under.  No more the above-age-appropriate-risk of the metal merry-go-round, this sucker made you stop when your friend fell under it.  You had to stop and help the out to get to make it go again.  Isn't that great socialization?

(Again, shades of Terramagne.)

Next time I go, I'm going to bring a bucket of sidewalk chalk.  Because I think it's the sort of park where nobody will think me walking up with chalk and a request for hopscotch is that strange.  I might even chalk out the word for welcome in other languages besides English and ASL under the statues.


It's a really great park.