These prominent golden-agers talk about lifelong achievements, what they learned through the years, what they are planning on next and how living longer is a rewarding daily adventure.
Written by David Hodes
Interviewed by David M. Block, David Hodes and Pete Mundo
Jim Chappell
Birth date: October 21, 1942, Age: 82
“If you want someone to be interested in you, be interested in them.”
It’s unbelievable. It’s incredible. Stepping through the door into Jim Chappell’s Restaurant and Sports Museum in downtown North Kansas City, voted one of the best sports museums in the country by Sports Illustrated, most people barely get a few feet in before they stop, look around, stare and point, their eyes wide open, grinning and shaking their heads in disbelief.
Because here, in this unassuming restaurant operated by one of the most enthusiastic and entertaining guys you’d ever want to meet, are true treasures of the sports universe.
“I’m an upscale family restaurant that has sports memorabilia,” Chappell says. “They got me in the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame because I had so much of it.”
If he didn’t have this memorabilia, he says, he doesn’t know that this restaurant would have lasted as long as it has. It first opened in 1986 as a political- and sports-themed bar and grill. “I think that (the memorabilia) is what brings people back,” Chappell says. “You can get a cheap burger anywhere, but you got to have a hook.”
The Helmets
The restaurant-museum hybrid has dozens and dozens of impressive college and pro football helmets hanging from the ceiling and walls. “Hanging up these football helmets was a stroke of genius, but I didn’t plan it,” Chappell says. It happened when USA Today picked out the top 50 sports bars in the country, one from every state. “This guy from Glendale, Arizona, gets his picture on the front page of USA Today because he had a bowl and helmet. I had a World Series trophy. I had two Olympic torches. I had a Dallas Texas warm up jacket. I had a Heisman trophy. But he gets on the front page. So I only had about 50 helmets at the time, and I said I’m going to get 1,000 helmets within a week. Now I always tell everybody I got 1,001 helmets. And I do.”
The Real Treasure
The real treasure here is the owner. Chappell will take you on a tour any time. Your jaw will drop again and again from the amazing stuff you see. And Chappell takes it all in—your reaction, your surprise—because this 80-year-old-plus guy has spent a lifetime collecting rare sports museum pieces. He wants everyone to have a good time in his place. And boy, do they ever.
You step into this sports wonderland and see Michael Jordan’s autographed Olympics jersey, the boxing gloves Sylvester Stallone wore in Rocky and the home plate from Municipal Stadium signed by the 1955 Kansas City Athletics.
There’s Tom Watson’s putter and the signed photographs of baseball legends Jackie Robinson and Satchel Paige posing in his Monarch’s uniforms. You might see famous people such as Dave Winfield, Marcus Allen, Joe Montana, George Brett, Warren Buffett or Vince Gill hanging out there.
Community Service Honors
Chappell has a long list of civic and community
service work. He’s been a member and chairman of the Kansas City Plan Commission; commissioner of the Kansas City Port Authority; and chairman of the Clay County Board of Election Commissioners
from 2002 to 2017. He also ran for Missouri state senator in 1978.
Then, in 2013, he was honored as an inductee in the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame.
The Natural
Chappell just soaks up that glee and amazement from everybody coming in to his place, with his standard cheery disposition and a glad-hand one-on-one “how-you-doing” attitude that makes everyone feel the special way he wants them to feel amid his collection.
Chappell has been all-in from the get-go. “I was right here in this restaurant every day from 9:30 in the morning to 10:30 at night, and I met everybody at the front door,” he says. “I shook hands with everybody who walked in.”
Chappell graduated from Drury University in Springfield, Missouri, in 1965, then worked at a restaurant in the Ozarks before landing a management job in Kansas City at the Mobile Oil Corporation in 1968—a bad fit. “I’m not a corporate guy,” he says. “Then I was in the insurance business, which I kind of liked doing.” He was a partner in a local insurance company for 20 years, and it was during that time that he decided to open his restaurant. “I opened this kind of political and sports bar, and it just took over my life,” he says. “It just engulfed me, which I’m glad it did. I love doing what I’m doing.”
But owning a restaurant is not for the faint of heart. “You’re a fool for opening a restaurant,” people were telling him. “They actually laughed in my face,” Chappell says. “That ended up being pretty bad advice because it turned out differently.”
Still, Chappell says, he felt a little out of his comfort zone at first. “I am the unconscious competent,” he says. “You have the conscious competent. They know exactly what they’re doing, and they do it right. You have the unconscious incompetent. He doesn’t know what the hell he is doing, and he doesn’t do it. Then you have the conscious incompetent. He knows what he should do, but he goes to the lake on the weekend and doesn’t do it. Then there’s me, the unconscious competent. He doesn’t know what the hell he is doing but always lands on his feet.” If something unpredictable happens in this often crazy restaurant world, which Chappell says happens all the time, he’ll just work it out. “I mean, lightning is not going to strike and kill you or anything. So you just work it out. It may not be fun or it may be uncomfortable, but it’s going to be worked out. It’s going to be just fine.”
Living Long
People who live the longest have something to do, he says, noting that he owned his restaurant since 1986. He sold it in 2018, but he’s still there, still coming in, still meeting people. He’s still Jim Chappell being Jim Chappell.
“I have kept reinventing myself over my life,” he says. “I always have some interest. I was interested in books at the library. Before that, sports memorabilia, another restaurant and now I’m interested in family history. I would say: Always have a project and always do something you like to do. That’s exactly how I feel. I try to keep a good mental, physical and spiritual well-being.”
What’s the most important thing in life? “I’ve been married for 58 years to Gina, and it’s the No. 1 thing I did right. The No. 2 thing I did right was opening Chappell’s. And No. 3 thing was quit smoking and drinking.”
“Then there’s me, the unconscious competent. He doesn’t know what the hell he is doing but always lands on his feet.”
“You can get a cheap burger anywhere, but you got to have a hook.”
