Kansas city restaurant gift certificate

I recently traveled to Kansas City, both the Missouri and Kansas sides of town, and found, not suprisingly, great barbecue, wonderful people and some sophisticated bar's. Although I had only three days there, one rule of thumb quickly became clear: If you are at point A and wish to travel to point B, the trip will take 45 minutes car no matter where points A and B are located. Restaurateurs in Kansas, therefore, must go out of their way to accommodate designated drivers - a very necessary commodity,- in such a sprawling city. How do they do it? In one particular case - a restaurant called Old Chicago - they offer a huge selection of root beers.

You might be wondering just how root beer could possible,. attract designated drivers. but being something of a root beer freak, to me, it makes perfect sense. The designated driver - or anyone who doesn't drink beverage alcohol, for that matter - usually has very little choice when it comes to selecting a beverage for the evening, and although colas and lemon-lime sodas can be wonderfully refreshing, it's almost impossible to drink them all night while your friends are sipping beer. wine or spirits.

Root beer. however. is a spicy, more complex, more "adult" style of soda that can be sipped for hours on end, and although the good folk at Old Chicago started offering I 0 varieties of root beer to attract families with children, they have found that plenty, of adults are knocking them back with amazing regularity.

Justin Lloyd, bar manager at Old Chicago, told me of the restaurant's very, successful method of marketing their revolving selection of root beers: "It started with our "World Beer Tour," he said. "We offer around 120 different beers, and we offer prizes to people who drink their way through our list - over long periods of time, of course. After sampling 10 beers, the customer is issued a "credit card," which keeps track of every beer ordered merely by swiping it through our computer. Then, after every- 15 new beers, the customer gets a prize. such as a gift certificate, a stein or a baseball cap. When he reaches 110 beers, the reward is a sweatshirt, his name is entered onto a brass plaque and he becomes an official member of our Hall of Foam. The root beer tour grew from this concept."

At Old Chicago any customer who works his or her way through all the root beers on the list is rewarded with a "Ralph the Dinosaur" T-shirt. One of the restaurant's regulars told me of his 12-year-old daughter who loved to ask the servers about which bottlings of root beers were available - imitating her parents, who always ask about the regular beer selection. So the theory that offering root beers would attract families did work, but what Lloyd didn't count on was the fact that many adults would be enamored of their soda selection.

"We are very serious about the problems of drinking and driving, Lloyd said. "All our servers attend lectures on how to spot people who have had enough to drink, and we teach them how to deal with the }situation m an amicable manner. We had no idea, however, that our root beers would be part of the solution. Adults are constantly telling us about new bottling they have found that they want us to stock.

You, too, may want to capitalize On sophisticated sodas for designated drivers, and in addition to root beer, You should probably think about stocking ginger beer - a dry, grown-up) style of soda-and look around for different styles of ginger ale. some brands can be amazingly dry and spicy. Just remember that the one driver in a party of four customers probably has more Power than the other three combined when it comes to selecting a restaurant for the evening. And that's the kind of person that a SAVVY restaurateur should pamper.