^ vintage dining
Vintage ‘Attitude’ Story and Photos by CHARLES FERRUZZA I n the years leading up to WorldWar I, there were fewmidtown streets in Kansas City as busy as 31st, the fast-moving artery going from the eastside to the west with crowded streetcars taking patrons to movie theaters, shopping dis- tricts, restaurants and neighborhood drugstores. One of those neighborhood pharmacies, at the corner of 31st and Cherry, was the Wirthman- Hill Drug Store, owned by Joe and George Wirthman and their partner B.S Hill. Located in a narrow storefront, the drug store had a compact soda fountain, but wasn’t nearly as a grand as the one inside the glamorous Isis Theater, located in the Wirthman’s namesake building at 31st Street and Troost (where a young cartoonist named Walt Disney had his first offices); that iconic structure lasted until 1997. The more modest two-story building at 600 East 31st Street that housed the Wirthman-Hill Drug Store is still standing – the tile stoop that still boasts the word “Drugs” after a century lin- gers on – although the drug store barely outlasted the first WorldWar. In later years, it served as a men’s clothing store, a hat-cleaning shop, a flower shop and, for most of the second half of the 20th century, a tire supply store. Since last April, this storefront has had a long-overdue revival by local restaurateurs Patti Allen and Greg Kormanik who turned the long-vacant space into a charming, cozy bruncheonette called Attitude – open Tuesday through Sunday – that sells hearty breakfasts, lunches, baked goods and antiques. It was antiques and collectibles that brought Allen and Kormanik together (they’re inveter- ate collectors); they saw each other at an estate sale several years ago. They petite Allen took one look at the tall, lanky Kormanik and had an epiphany: “I liked his sense of humor. I thought he was funny,” Allen says. “So I walked up and gave him my card.” Kormanik liked her no-nonsense attitude and it wasn’t long before they were dating. Patti Allen had already created an antique business of her own, Bella Patina, in the historic West Bottoms.
Above: Attitude at 31st & Cherry Left: Attitude’s menu for the day
breakfasts with freshly-baked biscuits, desserts) and artful displays of unique vintage items (an- tique silver, plates, decorative items), but just in case the long-neglected storefront was inhabited by spirits, Allen burned sage in the rooms. “I think there’s still a ghost on the first floor,” Allen says. “Sometimes when I’m washing dishes, I can sense there’s someone or some- thing standing next to me.” Instead of being open one weekend a month, Attitude is now serving food from 7 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Tuesdays through Sundays.
The multi-level warehouse housing their vintage business needed a place where customers could eat, so together, Allen and Kormanik opened a lunch room on the top floor of Bella Patina that they called Vintage Eats & Sweets. It quickly de- veloped a following, but was open only during the shop’s hours: one weekend a month during First Friday shopping weekends. “We wanted to create a restaurant,” says Allen, “with more consistent hours. “ The oldWirthman-Hill space seemed perfectly suited to their collection of recipes (sandwiches,
6 VINTAGEKC WINTER 2017
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