Funky Town KC — Restaurant in Kansas City

Funky Town KC is far from the fun and exciting night club it was years ago. Went there for my 21st birthday in 2013 and it has been a yearly tradition for so many birthdays since. However, it is very much missing nearly ALL of its good points. They used to have staff that would dance and get people on the dance floor. Not anymore. They used to open the dance floor officially at 9PM on the dot with a performance of the song "Funkytown". Now it plays by 10PM if you're lucky, and no performance aside from them playing it at top volume on their blown out speaker system. They used to have staff going table to table getting orders. Not anymore.

Recently visited this last Saturday 7/22 and it was probably the worst experience we have ever had there. The price increases are ridiculous. It was an $8 cover charge for years, and it increased to $10 after COVID. They increased it again to $15 per person, which for the experience we had is honestly not worth it. We counted a total of 6 staff all night. One was the door checker checking IDs and coats. They had 2 DJs behind the DJ booth at all times, 2 bartenders and we saw one security personnel. We assume that is who they were as they told people to get off of the cage on the dance floor. Only 1 bar was open, as the second bar area behind the van (that used to be open years ago) has read "coming soon" for literally years as if they are renovating that area. Still have no idea what renovations they are doing there. Dust, grime and who knows what covered the ceilings so thickly we didn't know what we were looking at at first. Only 1 of the 2 pool tables were open. The one that was available, was so broken it was almost unplayable as the pool balls would lose all momentum after hitting a side wall. You could literally feel the pieces of the side walls underneath the felt and could feel how broken they were. It took almost 40 minutes of waiting in line to get drinks (we literally had a timer going). Drink prices also increase significantly. An AMF used to be $9 and it is now $12 and not nearly as strong as they usually are. Water is not free, nor do they offer ice water in a cup. Only bottle water is available for $2.50 and its a small bottle of spring water. No food is available either. They used to have a full menu with fun little dishes like Britney Pickle Spears and M.C. Hammer-burger etc. After COVID they were selling Jack's brand pizza (which you can get for $1.50 at your local Walmart) for $12 per pizza. Now they have NO food options, which blows my mind. The music was so loud and the speakers were so blown out that my ears are STILL ringing as I am typing this out days after my visit.

Funky Town has a great group of patrons that regularly visit because of its uniqueness. However, all those unique qualities, aside from the decor inside and the setlist, are almost all gone. While I understand that COVID had a huge impact on local businesses, I cant help but feel that just isn't the case here. The lack of staff, the lack of up keep, the lack of care in this establishment is do diminished it is sad. Hopefully the owner is able to complete renovations, hire more staff, clean the place up and make some much needed repairs and maintenance in order to bring it back to its former glory. Sadly, I don't see that happening, and will probably have to just watch this used to be...

There is a place that has scared me since I moved here. Off a freeway outside of Kansas City is a place that I’d passed many times during daylight hours and shuddered. It looked like a place of horror movies, bad music, and of times long past. Both Cody and I assumed it was closed. I dislike the Funk genre with it comic and simplistic twanging bass, and I dislike the descriptive words for foul odors “stinky” and “funky”, so I naturally cringed at the name of the place: Funky Town.

A friend invited us to her birthday there this past weekend. Making this face 😩 at going out at night, and realizing it was this Funky Town to which we were going, I braced up and bucked up. Hoping online I read the bad reviews for the place and was incredulous as to why anyone would choose to go there. But this friend is awesome and we couldn’t miss it.

The dilapidated Funky Town has a strict dress code, you can only get in with a reservation, and a $15 cover. It’s a themed club. It’s disco, funk, hippie. Having kind of an alarming number of outfits that fit the theme, I dressed up, caffeinated, and braced myself for the horror that sober socialization often is. I hate loud places and trying to have shouting conversations with people who are so drunk they won’t even notice if I walk away mid-sentence. So I pasted on a smile and reminded myself that the night was about a celebration of an excellent human and not about me and my angst, discomfort, judginess, and cynicism.

Now, I’m a very judgy and cynical person. Very.

This place was somehow AMAZING. It was outdated, kinda grungy, had the faux-hippie brightly colored bubble-decor everywhere (which I hate), the aesthetic was like a combination of a hippie/disco carnival and Toon Town, all handmade decades ago. The DJ was terrible at DJing. The bar felt makeshift and had a terrible selection of NA beverages.

I think it’s the policy of reservation only that makes this place work. It’s a destination. Everyone was there to have fun. Old couples who lived these decades that had become the theme, young people who want a retro night, families (with grown children; it’s 21+). It wasn’t a anthropologic mating fest like most clubs, with all the cringy behavior that come that. Very young, drunk girls were watched after by either their families or protective older strangers. Guys didn’t get aggressive. This wasn’t a “place to be seen” kind of place.

Now I don’t dance. Except on MDMA which I played with a bit in my late 20s. I don’t “feel music” or have rhythm, and I’m tone deaf. I’m also very self conscious about dancing. I don’t know what to do with my arms. I can feel every cell in my body at all times (mostly painfully)and that makes it hard to let go and have the type of fun with dancing that so many seem to have. Plus not drinking alcohol. I want to want to dance. It looks fun when I’m watching people dance. This place was so unselfconscious though that I actually got out there and did it! It wasn’t at the level of been able to get to with MDMA or anything,...

We never do anything for New Years. So this year we decided it was time. We saw on funky towns website they were having nye. We called several times and the gentleman told us all back next Wednesday now call back next Friday. Then when we finally went in there to get tickets they were to be open and were not we got thirty minutes down the road and got a call. It was a lady named Mary. We turned around and bought the tickets. However she forgot to sign and stamp the ticket. We can just keep going back and forth so when B went to drill he stayed and went one night and got them signed and we were told everything is good now. We get to the club right at 8 pm to get a seat etc. we walk in and there are names on all the tables so now we have no we’re to sit . The waitress tried but is confused we get the manager iris. And this is when things go very wrong. We first have to prove to her that we bought tickets The day they going to sell that’s not my job as a customer secondly she’s screaming where everyone can hear it making it look like we are bad for her not doing her job then she blames a guy with a name I believe George or Greg says it was his job to do the seating chart again not my job as a customer to think about what some other guy was supposed to do then she screams at the waitress which again not her job . We didn’t make the best of it but we were planning on buying a lot of beverages that night we ended up buying zero drinks and just dancing the dancing was fun but if everybody would’ve try to get on the stage there would’ve been absolutely no way there were times that people were dancing on the sides or on where you’re supposed to walk because the stage was too small it would’ve been nice to be able to drink but we’re obviously not gonna pay for drinks when we don’t even have a table assigned to us. But it would’ve been nice to even be able to buy some water or some Coke but there’s no way you’re gonna stand there with people banging into each other trying to drink and I also don’t think you’re supposed to have drinks on the dance...