:: news ::

Glenn Beck and Miley Cyrus, your Drum Room table is ready
By Charles Ferruzza of Pitch.com

The Drum Room, in the historic President Hotel, is the subject of this week's Cafe review in The Pitch. Back in the 1940s and '50s, when downtown Kansas City was an entertainment mecca -- movie palaces! Nightclubs! Burlesque! -- the Drum Room called itself a BaRestaurant and operated as a supper club. Patrons could dine, dance or just listen to the featured musical acts in the main dining room.

"It was a place to see famous people -- sometimes infamous people -- and be seen," recalls Walt Bodine, who was one of the local celebs who was always seated at a preferred table near the stage. There's no longer a stage in the main dining room, but wouldn't it be great if the restaurant could attract a Who's Who crowd again?

When "Cafe Society" -- a mingling of wealthy socialites, stage and screen stars, musical headliners, gangsters and media personalities -- used to gather at famous New York City nightspots like El Morocco or the Stork Club, the owners would curry their favor.

Sherman Billingsley, the swaggering, Oklahoma-born proprietor of the Stork Club (he started his career as a teenage bootlegger) was highly competitive about luring celebrity names to his boite, since his pal, gossip columnist Walter Winchell, would drop their names and the Stork Club's in his well-read column and radio show. To keep the celebs coming in, Billingsley would give the favored guests free meals, cocktails and gifts (like his private label brand of perfume).

Maybe that's a tactic that Ron Jury, the owner of the President Hotel, should consider for the Drum Room. The restaurant has been the busiest, according to the staff, when there's a concert at the Sprint Center; when Paul McCartney was in town, the dining room was packed.

So maybe a well-laden swag bag or a free steak dinner might lure a combination of international and national names -- with a little local color mixed in. Imagine being escorted to a table in the main dining room and passing a table where CBS anchor Katie Couric was sharing a plate of fried calamari with Kim Kardashian, 60 Minutes curmudgeon Andy Rooney, Justin Bieber and local blogger Tony Botello?

How about Hallmark's Don Hall and Councilwoman Beth Gottstein raising glasses of champagne with Miley Cyrus, conservative blabber Glenn Beck, rapper TI and Carly Fiorina?

The possibilities are endless. Who do you want to run into at the Drum Room?