KC Confidential.com

One could easily make the case that Waldo has always been an entertainment district…

For seniors maybe and few frills blue collars who were long on sports strategies and political posturing and short on folding money. Does the name Harry Wiggins ring a bell? Anybody ever spot former KCMO 710 AM personality Mike Murphy tripping the light fandango there?

It wasn’t really until Chris and Andy Lewellen bellied up to the bar there with Lew’s that Waldo began to resemble an actual party zone. Now thanks to trendier water holes like Hannibal’s and the all-new Kennedy’s along with neighborhood staples Tanner’s and 75th Street Brewery, Waldo is well on its way to becoming KC’s premier neighborhood party hang.

It’s just that simple…

That’s not to say there aren’t a few glaring holes in Waldo’s entertainment portfolio.

Which brings us to the Lewellens and their soon-to-open restaurant/bar The Well, at 7140 Wornall Road.

First the name…

“The double meaning of it is is that ‘well’ is the four middle letters of Lewellen,” Chris says. “It’s also ‘Lew’ spelled backwards and the name Lew is something our friends called us when we were little kids. And when Andy and I were in college  they had to differentiate us, so they called me Big Lew and Andy Little Lew.”

There’s more.

“The Well has a double meaning, in days gone by it was always the place where everybody went to get their water and to socialize, so we want to be the well of Waldo,” Chris says.

The Lewellen’s strategy is threefold.

“The whole theme of this place is we felt Waldo was missing three components and we didn’t have the room to expand and add them at Lew’s,” Chris says. “The first was uncovered outdoor seating. Not only do we have the largest now, we have one of the few rooftop patios in Kansas City.”

There’s a politically correct reason for the two-patio strategy and first floor patio.

“The city said, if you want to do a rooftop patio you have to do one of two things,” Chris says. “Either put an elevator up there or create a like experience somewhere else. So we just didn’t put in a rinky-dink patio like five feet by five feet, we did it right – just like we do everything.”

Waldo’s second missing link: an elevated VIP seating area that morphs into a stage.

“There’s no real place to have live music,” Chris says. “And although we’re not going to become a live music venue per se. This will enable us to have live bands and it’s big enough to have city-wide bands like The Elders. If you notice, most people build the bar and then they’re like, ‘Oh, where are we gonna put the band?’ And like they stick it in the corner or something. We actually designed this in with great sight lines throughout the room so you can see the band and all the electrical.”

The Well’s third unique-to-Waldo component, is high quality dining fare, and private party rooms, Chris says.

“Because there’s really not a good private dining facility in Waldo,” he says. “And there’s no place at Lew’s to expand. We just had a call today about a wedding reception. But now at this place, we’ll have several options both indoor and outdoor for private parties and functions. We’ll be able to host parties as small as 20 people and as large as 60.”

Which brings us to the all-important top deck overlooking the “church steeples of Brookside” Waldo Water Tower Park’s water tower, the jogging trail, and the parade of local hunks and hotties on the street-scape below with classic Tiki Torches around the perimeter.

And the food…

“It’s American cuisine,” Andy says. “Our kitchen is three times the size of Lew’s and our emphasis is going to be on fine fresh foods and micro beers. We’re just going to take everything up a notch with our executive chef Terry Barkley who used to work at Gilbert-Robinson.”

ETA on the new joint: look for a soft opening late next month…

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