OFFICIAL - 21c Museum Hotel KC (former Savoy Hotel)

Issues concerning Downtown as described by the Downtown Council. River to 31st Street, I-35 to Bruce R. Watkins.
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Re: Savoy Hotel to undergo $25 mil gut/resto

Post by lock+load »

^I stayed on my wedding night as well.  It smells like 1920 too!  The full experience :)
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Re: Savoy Hotel to undergo $25 mil gut/resto

Post by kcdcchef »

if they close the restaurant for anything longer than a month or two, it will never come back how it was. never. i can see removing the stained glass windows and putting regular glass back in, i can get that. i can see them closing the dining room for a month or so to put in new windows, redo some wiring and piping, put in a new floor or some shit, but if you have been in the dining room, you know it is fabulous, and does not need a lot of work really. the lobby of the hotel needs a fuckload of work. but really just opening it all up with normal glass will help a LOT.

but if they close it very long, the servers will not come back. and the restaurant will lose its grandeaur. and that would suck. and like some have mentioned, making it like other kc restaurants will be its undoing. it will eventually, fade away. i dont like the savoy grill every time, but once in a while, it feels like you are in the movie "the natural" or even dining in the formal dining room of the titanic or something. it is class, on a grand scale, that cannot be found elsewhere in kc. they tried to recreate it with the new drum room, and although i like the drum room, it is not recreated. sorry.

please, developers, do not fuck up the savoy grill.
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Re: Savoy Hotel to undergo $25 mil gut/resto

Post by beautyfromashes »

^ Where would the servers go? Mr. White Gloves is going to work in P&L? Zona Rosa?  Just curious and EXTREMELY worried for Mr. White Gloves
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Re: Savoy Hotel to undergo $25 mil gut/resto

Post by kcdcchef »

beautyfromashes wrote: ^ Where would the servers go? Mr. White Gloves is going to work in P&L? Zona Rosa?  Just curious and EXTREMELY worried for Mr. White Gloves
i have no idea why you are being so sarcastic and nasty about it. i just worked there for a couple of years, and know some of those servers. i remained friends with several of them that lived in 910 penn for many years after i left the savoy. and they are like anyone else, they need to make money. if that place closes longer than a few months, and the new management changes the concept of the savoy grill, where will palmer, manny, scotty, bomar, harry, etc, ( just some of the longtimers i know that are still there ) where will they go?

some will retire. some will move their fancy uptown act to some other steakhouse in town. many of them have been part time servers at other joints in town, they can handle it, dont worry.

kc will lose a treasure if this place does not remain as is. if you need proof, go to the president hotel, the phillips, union station along with harvey house, muehlbach, see how it worked for them. they are all in business, doing okay, but none of them can touch the savoy in terms of sucess. that restaurant, you cannot fucking get in there during christmas!! booked solid! you want that treasure gone??
MU FINISHED THE YEAR RANKED HIGHER IN HOOPS AND FOOTBALL THAN THE KAY U JAYDORKS. UP YOURS KAY U JAYDORK FANS!!!! :D :D :D :D :D
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Re: Savoy Hotel to undergo $25 mil gut/resto

Post by beautyfromashes »

kcdcchef wrote: some will retire. some will move their fancy uptown act to some other steakhouse in town. many of them have been part time servers at other joints in town, they can handle it, dont worry.
Just curious.  Thought there was no place in town like it.  Glad Mr. White Gloves will be ok.
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Re: Savoy Hotel to undergo $25 mil gut/resto

Post by lock+load »

The Savoy must not be plastic enough for BFA.  That's OK, you can enjoy your stay at the Marriott.
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Re: Savoy Hotel to undergo $25 mil gut/resto

Post by beautyfromashes »

Yeah, I'm just too young to enjoy the place.  If I was decrepid and my wife had blue hair, I'm sure I would like it.  To each his own.
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Re: Savoy Hotel to undergo $25 mil gut/resto

Post by lock+load »

beautyfromashes wrote: Yeah, I'm just too young to enjoy the place.  If I was decrepid and my wife had blue hair, I'm sure I would like it.  To each his own.
Or you might just go to Denny's.
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Re: Savoy Hotel to undergo $25 mil gut/resto

Post by LenexatoKCMO »

beautyfromashes wrote: Yeah, I'm just too young to enjoy the place.  If I was decrepid and my wife had blue hair, I'm sure I would like it.  To each his own.
I first went when I was 14 and loved the place then - but I have always been a slow eater and more inclined for that sort of experience. 
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Re: Savoy Hotel to undergo $25 mil gut/resto

Post by beautyfromashes »

lock+load wrote: Or you might just go to Denny's.
I'd probably prefer Denny's. 

Listen, I've eaten at the Savoy a few times, however, not at my request or suggestion.  The food is good.  I just am not intrigued by the reminder of a bygone era.  I didn't grow up in that era, so, I don't have any nostaglia towards it.  I don't relate to mob culture and want to pretend to live in the 1920's.  And I sure don't want to be reminded of a time when black men were paid pennies to clean the table all the while saying 'yes sa', 'no sa' and wearing goddamn white gloves. 
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Re: Savoy Hotel to undergo $25 mil gut/resto

Post by KCMax »

beautyfromashes wrote: I'd probably prefer Denny's. 

Listen, I've eaten at the Savoy a few times, however, not at my request or suggestion.  The food is good.  I just am not intrigued by the reminder of a bygone era.  I didn't grow up in that era, so, I don't have any nostaglia towards it.  I don't relate to mob culture and want to pretend to live in the 1920's.  And I sure don't want to be reminded of a time when black men were paid pennies to clean the table all the while saying 'yes sa', 'no sa' and wearing goddamn white gloves. 
Then don't go. I don't see why you feel the need to attack others that like it.
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Re: Savoy Hotel to undergo $25 mil gut/resto

Post by cityscape »

beautyfromashes wrote: I'd probably prefer Denny's. 

Listen, I've eaten at the Savoy a few times, however, not at my request or suggestion.  The food is good.  I just am not intrigued by the reminder of a bygone era.  I didn't grow up in that era, so, I don't have any nostaglia towards it.  I don't relate to mob culture and want to pretend to live in the 1920's.  And I sure don't want to be reminded of a time when black men were paid pennies to clean the table all the while saying 'yes sa', 'no sa' and wearing goddamn white gloves. 
Yeah, history sucks! &&&
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Re: Savoy Hotel to undergo $25 mil gut/resto

Post by kcdcchef »

beautyfromashes wrote: Yeah, I'm just too young to enjoy the place.  If I was decrepid and my wife had blue hair, I'm sure I would like it.  To each his own.
between this comment and your last one, i am not sure why you are attacking it so much. i hate soccer, and love to fuck with many posters on here about the wizards, but i dont carry on like this. and your assertions that it reeks of 1920's jim crow racism are so far removed from reality, IT IS SAD. it reeks, if anything, of 18th century england, or 18th century new england. that is the style of service they do, and the style of food.

and your youth should have nothing to do with this. you are arguing with people that are in your age group. i am mid to late thirties. kcmax is closer to thirty, from my understanding. this has nothing to with youth. and white gloves dont mean a supression of a race. i am all about southern foods and southern cooking. and i know no one that is black that resents it, they are as proud of the heritage as others are. shit, when i was doing my research, there plenty of blacks that have no issues with that style of service. i can tell you from working there that the black waiters love it there. as to the white ones. you seem to be the only one with these issues.

my god, there were just as many young white guys working for pennies in the 1920's!!!
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Re: Savoy Hotel to undergo $25 mil gut/resto

Post by beautyfromashes »

White gloves were required by black servers for decades because they were considered too dirty to touch the food and china of white patrons.  It was seen as an acceptible restriction to justify the meeting of races across a racist barrier.  I'm not sure why anyone would still want this for their dinner service anymore or justify it as some romanticized practice.
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Re: Savoy Hotel to undergo $25 mil gut/resto

Post by PumpkinStalker »

I'm 27 and when I went 4 weeks ago I sat at the bar and had a beer (Anchor Steam  :)) I saw more white guys serving than black.  The white woman at the cash register had to be in her mid 70s and had to sit on a stool.  I will bet they make more money than myself sitting in my cubicle.  I didn't get a racist feeling at all, not one bit.  I did get a feeling of grandeur from a bygone era, and loved it.
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Re: Savoy Hotel to undergo $25 mil gut/resto

Post by chrizow »

using silverware is racist.
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Re: Savoy Hotel to undergo $25 mil gut/resto

Post by kcdcchef »

beautyfromashes wrote: White gloves were required by black servers for decades because they were considered too dirty to touch the food and china of white patrons.  It was seen as an acceptible restriction to justify the meeting of races across a racist barrier.  I'm not sure why anyone would still want this for their dinner service anymore or justify it as some romanticized practice.
this, again, is an 17th and 18th century england / new england thing. white gloves showed formality. it may have ALSO been what you said, but it was first and foremost born in europe well over 400 years ago. not in the segregated south. the segragated south, was if anything, part of the original colonies, if you remember learning this from elementary school. which, since you are so young and all, should remember easier than i can. anyways, it shows formality, not racism. if you choose to view it as such, you are in the minority. i dont hear blacks ( and i am a chef in the fine dining side of things ) bitching about it. as a matter of fact, they embrace it in high society. perhaps you should look up the dixie flag, that is one that everyone sees as racist, whites and blacks. they dont, however, fly this flag at the savoy.
PumpkinStalker wrote: I'm 27 and when I went 4 weeks ago I sat at the bar and had a beer (Anchor Steam  :)) I saw more white guys serving than black.  The white woman at the cash register had to be in her mid 70s and had to sit on a stool.  I will bet they make more money than myself sitting in my cubicle.  I didn't get a racist feeling at all, not one bit.  I did get a feeling of grandeur from a bygone era, and loved it.
those servers at the savoy grill make more money than most of us do. when i was a kid there in 1990, i thought i was on top of the world making $6.50 an hour sauteeing at nite. i would clear, with overtime, about $250, and thought i was on top of the world. serves, back then, in 1990, on a busy weekend nite, would make close to $100. nowadays, in my restaurants, good servers make $200 on a busy weekend nite.
MU FINISHED THE YEAR RANKED HIGHER IN HOOPS AND FOOTBALL THAN THE KAY U JAYDORKS. UP YOURS KAY U JAYDORK FANS!!!! :D :D :D :D :D
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Re: Savoy Hotel to undergo $25 mil gut/resto

Post by LenexatoKCMO »

beautyfromashes wrote: White gloves were required by black servers for decades because they were considered too dirty to touch the food and china of white patrons.  It was seen as an acceptible restriction to justify the meeting of races across a racist barrier.  I'm not sure why anyone would still want this for their dinner service anymore or justify it as some romanticized practice.
White gloved service has history much, much more extensive than just in the context of the antibellum american south.  
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Re: Savoy Hotel to undergo $25 mil gut/resto

Post by kcdcchef »

the outdoor marquis of the savoy grill.
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the menu, with the fine china, starched linen, and elegant spread in general
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the dome above the dining room. this alone is worth the trip to see. it reminds me of the dome above grand staircase on the titanic.
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the main bar in the dining room. so elegant.
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the calamari, my favorite savoy grill appetizer.
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my god, just look at this spread. seriously. this is amazing. where do you find elegance like this in 2009?
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Re: Savoy Hotel to undergo $25 mil gut/resto

Post by AJoD »

kcdcchef--

Thanks for your posts in this thread, incredibly interesting.  A friend of mine is good friends with the Savoy chef, and he's regaled me with tales of its quality and style.  Of course, he gets a little inside treatment.  I've always wanted to believe it's the old school, high class sort of joint you described, despite the fact that, for whatever reason, I'd previously thought it was a dump on the decline, actually, already declined.

Well, actually for the reasons that PumpkinStalker displayed upthread.

The reputed high pricetag has put me off, but this thread has got me stoked to give this place a try as circumstances allow, and I sure as heck hope the redevelopers maintain this character.
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