St. Paddy’s Day is this week, and we’ve officially got an extra hour of daylight—and both mean more time for shenanigans. Here are some events happening in KC this St. Patrick’s Day and a few other weekend events, too.
Annual St. Pat’s Day Celebration at Kansas City Live! in the Power & Light District
P&L will host its annual St. Patrick’s Day celebration at the KC Live! Block this Thursday with a green beer garden, St. Pat’s-themed food specials and a show from Loud Luxury and DJ Ashton Martin. McFadden’s will open at 9 am for Pints & Pancakes with all-you-can-eat green pancakes for $10 until noon. Green beer specials and $5 Guinness pints will keep the party going all day long.
Thursday, March 17. 5 pm. Kansas City Live! in the Power & Light District.
Kansas City’s largest and oldest St. Patrick’s Day celebration in Westport
After a two-year hiatus, Kansas City’s largest and oldest St. Patrick’s Day Celebration returns to Westport on Thursday with Irish cuisine, drinks, outdoor beer gardens and live musical performances (starting at noon and going until 2 am). The day starts with many local businesses opening early for patrons to celebrate before, during, and after the 48th Annual Kansas City St. Patrick’s Day Parade, which prior to the pandemic was the fifth largest St. Patrick’s Day Parade in America, will roll along Broadway Boulevard at 11:00 am and end near the heart of Westport around 1:30 pm.
Here are the Westport establishments opening early: Harry’s Bar & Tables at 11 am, Mickey’s Hideaway at 8 am (featuring a St. Patrick’s Day brunch), Kelly’s Westport Inn at 10 am, Guy’s Deli at 9 am, Denver Biscuit Company at 7 am, Westport Café at 10 am (featuring a St. Patrick’s Day brunch).
Thursday, March 17. All day. Westport.
Shenanigans Pop-Up Bar
A St. Patrick’s-themed bar is opening for a short time in downtown Lee’s Summit. Shenanigans is a pop-up bar that features cocktails and decor for the St. Patrick’s Day season. Shenanigans opened Friday, March 4 inside the Barrel Room, the event space next door to Smoke Brewing Company in downtown Lee’s Summit. Among the offerings are the “Pot ‘O Gold” which is a riff on the classic Old Fashioned and the “Irish Goodbye,” a drink that is similar to the Aperol Spritz.
Open now until March 31. Days and hours vary. The Barrel Room (213 SE Main St.)
The 5th Annual Lucky’s St. Patrick’s Day Crawl
There’s a St. Patrick’s Day pub crawl in the Crossroads this Saturday, and it starts at The Brick. The crawl will include several bars, drink specials and an after-party at Double Tap.
Saturday, March 19. 4 pm-12 am. Starting at The Brick.
Orchid Symposium at Powell Gardens
Powell Gardens is opening its new season with a brand new exhibition, Orchid Delirium, which draws inspiration from the Victorian-era flower frenzy. The exhibit opened March 9 and will remain open until March 27. It showcases select blooms from Powell Gardens’ 600-piece orchid collection. One of the many events of this exhibition is the Orchid Symposium, a day of learning about orchids in an indoor tropical oasis where the vibrant colors of the collection collide with the orchids’ rich history.
Saturday, March 19. 10 am-4 pm. Powell Gardens. Tickets: powellgardens.org/orchid.
The Royale
Jack Johnson was the first Black heavyweight champ, an American icon of the early twentieth century. KCRep is staging The Royale, a new work by playwright Marco Ramirez (Orange is the New Black, Daredevil) that shows the human cost of making history.
Now–Sunday, March 27. Various times. Copaken Stage.
The Thoma Collection
The newest exhibit at the Nelson-Atkins Museum is a show featuring fifteen works of artists who worked under Spanish colonial rule in Ecuador, Bolivia and Peru in the 1600s and 1700s. The show, which runs through September 4, has works pulled from the holdings of Chicago’s Thoma Foundation, which has an emphasis on work from the Spanish Americas.
Now-September 4. Nelson-Atkins Museum.
Moving in Place
It’s the last weekend to see Charlotte Street’s Moving in Place, a site-specific show that features nine artists and includes performance, video art, sculpture and photography. The show was curated by Kimi Kitada, who gathered pieces in which the artists “use their own bodies as material and vessel for performance-based works.” The show includes work from artists based in Chicago, New York, L.A. and two locals (Haley Kostas and Johanna Winters), and in each work, the “presence of the body is integral to the realization of each piece.”
Now-March 19. Charlotte Street Gallery, 3333 Wyoming St., KCMO.