NoLaw bars and eateries boast a long history, a passion for food and fun, and a tradition of giving back to their unique community.
| 2018 Q4 | story by writer Anne Brockhoff | photos by Steven Hertzog
It’s easy to drive by a bar and assume you know what it’s like inside. Beer bar, topless bar, biker bar—they’re all exactly what you’d expect. Except when they aren’t.
In North Lawrence, Johnny’s Tavern has indeed long served beer and burgers, the Flamingo Club offers adult entertainment and the Slow Ride Roadhouse is a motorcycle magnet. But each is also an enduring establishment that focuses as much on helping the community as it does generating revenue. That makes the neighborhood a great place to do business, even if not everyone in Lawrence recognizes its potential.
“I think one of the big things is perception,” says Johnny’s owner Rick Renfro. “They don’t know because they don’t live there.” .
Renfro doesn’t either; his home is on Lawrence’s south side. But Renfro’s has owned a business there long enough to appreciate its independent character, and he’s proud of his tavern’s long history.
John Wilson opened Johnny’s in 1953, two years after a historic flood swept through the tractor dealership his family had owned at the corner of North Second and Locust streets. That makes Johnny’s Lawrence’s oldest bar, at least when judging by how long an establishment’s operated at the same location under a single name.
Renfro first met Wilson while tending bar at the Eagle’s Club, and Wilson soon lobbied him to take over Johnny’s. It made sense—Renfro had come to Lawrence to attend the University of Kansas but quickly learned he preferred rugby to studying. He needed a job that would keep him in town and enable him to play rugby, so he bought the bar in 1978.
“I was looking for a quick fix, but it turned into a 40-year gig,” Renfro explains.
Inside Johnny’s
From Quick Fix to Community Fixture
Plenty has changed over those decades. The two modern bridges spanning the Kansas River were completed in 1980. Other improvements followed, including the restoration of the Lawrence Union Pacific Depot in 1996, and additional infrastructure, road and beautification projects.
“Little by little, lots of things have been added on, and (the city and county) have made it nice,” Renfro says.
Attitudes have shifted, too. North Lawrence residents were once derided as “sand rats,” a term that literally referred to the rats living on the river’s edge. Over the years, that phrase has become a mark of pride and has been applied to reunions and running trails; there was even an effort to erect a sand rat memorial. A new wave of residents has moved in, drawn by proximity to downtown, bigger residential lots, a strong neighborhood association and the eclectic feel, Renfro says.
Johnny’s has also evolved. Back in the late 1970s, there were only about 10 bars in Lawrence, he says. Johnny’s sold a lot of beer back then, and the crowd for more than a decade was mostly college students. But Kansas laws eventually eased, making it easier for businesses to sell alcohol. Lawrence in November 2018 had 129 bars and restaurants with on-premise drinking-establishment licenses, according to the Kansas Department of Revenue’s online database.
Inside Johnny’s
Competition drove Johnny’s to expand its menu to include 10 burger options, appetizers, salads, sandwiches and pizza, and food these days accounts for about 70 percent of sales, Renfro explains. Johnny’s has expanded to 10 locations, including Johnny’s West, near Sixth and Wakarusa streets, and eight others in the greater Kansas City area.
Renfro and his three partners own a majority stake in the newer restaurants, but about 15 people also each own a small percentage in different locations. That might not sound like a lot, but it makes a huge difference to Renfro.
“I’ve always felt owner-operators in our establishments have a stake in it and care more about what’s happening,” he says.
The business’s structure allows for both consistency between locations and the opportunity to tweak the menu and tailor the atmosphere. Renfro likens the flagship Johnny’s to a pair of old, broken-in house shoes, while Johnny’s West and the Kansas City locations have a new running-shoe feel, he says.
And then there’s J. Wilson’s, which Renfro and his wife, Nancy, bought when it was still Mariscos and rebranded in 2016. They created a New American-style restaurant that feels more like “either loafers or dress shoes, whatever you want,” Renfro quips.
Renfro enjoys the hospitality industry, but he’s also been one of the prime movers behind the North Massachusetts Street project. He and his partners have worked since 2007 to create a mixed-use development with apartments, retail and amenities alongside the Kansas River off of North Second Street.
Rick Renfro with customers.
Development Still Developing
Early efforts focused on acquiring private property in the area, and the partners currently either own or have a contract to purchase the 16-acre site. Financing has proved challenging, though. Early interest dried up when the 2008 recession hit, and Renfro is hopeful the project is now placed to attract investors. In the meantime, the group continues discussions with the city on issues like utilities and access, and with the Corps of Engineers about how to build so close to the river.
“This will be a good partnership,” Renfro believes. “They’re as excited as we are.”
One thing Renfro isn’t excited about discussing? His support of the North Lawrence Improvement Association, Woodlawn Elementary School, Ballard Community Center and other groups and organizations.
“We do all those things I assume every small business in town does,” Renfro says. “We’ll give a $25 gift certificate here or there, or write a check. I don’t need kudos for that.”
He’d rather point to the work of folks like Wesley Kabler, who owns the Flamingo Club at the corner of North Ninth and Walnut streets, just over the city’s eastern limit.
“Wesley’s one of my mentors,” Renfro explains. Not only in how to run a business and operate in the bar industry, but, “the thing I’ve learned from him and how he gives his time helping people out is that you have to be a team player and a community guy.”
Kabler, who is originally from Kansas City, Kansas, moved to Lawrence in 1962 after buying a bar called the Purple Pig. He acquired the Flamingo Supper Club in 1967, which had for decades operated as a dance hall under various names, including the Golden Arrow.
Bands played every Friday and Saturday night, and the place was packed with college students until its 3 a.m. closing time, Kabler says. Other days were quieter, though, a problem Kabler solved after visiting a topless bar in Kansas City, Kansas, that was owned by a friend.
“It was crowded every day of the week,” he says. “I thought, ‘This is the way to go.’”
That was around 1970, Kabler explains, and the change not only filled the bar but also cut back on headaches like fights between patrons. His is a large space, with capacity of about 200, and the food menu includes a buffet with fried chicken, pork chops, barbecue and the like, a regular steak night and an all-you-can-eat lunch on Fridays.
The staff holds steady at about five or six, Kabler says, not including the dancers, who are independent contractors. Most employees stay for years, a rarity in an industry known for turnover.
“My rule has been, find somebody good and make your deal better than anyone else’s to keep them,” explains Kabler, who also owns an excavation business in North Lawrence. “That makes sense in any business.”
Flamingo
Building a Community at the Flamingo
Just as important is supporting his hometown. Kabler helped found the Lawrence St. Patrick’s Day Parade in 1988, which originally ran from the Flamingo to what was once the Jet Lag Lounge, at Sixth and Florida streets. The parade later shifted to its current downtown route and added a fun run, auction and activities that have, together, generated more than $1 million for local children’s charities during its 31-year history.
Kabler was also instrumental in starting another Lawrence tradition: the Community Christmas Dinner. It began in 1983 when Kabler and some friends decided to cook dinner for “anybody who didn’t have something to do on Christmas,” he says. Food-service industry contacts gave him a good deal on turkeys, while volunteers cooked and served food at the Flamingo, and made deliveries.
The event grew every year, eventually reaching the 500-meal mark and outgrowing the space.
“It was great,” Lawrence resident and volunteer Deb Engstrom says of the event. “The Flamingo was transformed a little, so you didn’t think of it as a bar, especially a strip bar, and it was really nice. But, of course, it was getting too small.”
Engstrom began overseeing the meal in 1993 and moved the event to the First United Methodist Church downtown. More than 1,200 Lawrence residents now either come to the church for a free Christmas dinner or have one delivered to them.
That spirit isn’t unique to the Flamingo. The Slow Ride Roadhouse, on North Third Street, north of the Kansas Turnpike exit, is known for hosting charity events and otherwise helping the community.
Maggie del Campo
Celebrating the Del Campo Legacy
Jesse del Campo Jr., whose family’s La Tropicana restaurant has long been a North Lawrence fixture, opened the bar and grill in 2005. He’d run bars including Club 508 before his love of motorcycles spurred him to create a place where anyone who liked bikes could gather.
“He decided to build this for his friends, and he made friends from all over the place,” explains Jesse’s sister, Maggie del Campo.
Jesse del Campo renovated and expanded the former Fifi’s Banquet Connection building, decking out the booths and pool tables in Harley-Davidson orange. There’s a large main bar, stage and dance floor inside, and a patio bar that wraps around the outside wall and opens onto a stage made from a converted bus.
Slow Ride was known throughout the region as a biker destination, so that entire community grieved when Jesse del Campo was killed in a motorcycle accident in July 2017. The Slow Ride closed, and its future remained in limbo for almost a year, until Maggie del Campo offered to reopen it. Severina del Campo, Jesse and Maggie’s mother, and the Slow Ride’s owner, said yes.
It’s proven a challenge. Shortly after reopening in May 2018, one of the coolers broke, then an air-conditioner, then the other cooler and then the point-of-sale system.
“The place was closed for nine months,” Maggie del Campo says. “When you close something and reopen, everything starts breaking.”
One thing that remained the same: a loyal clientele. The parking lot was packed on the first day, she explains, and the bar is still usually lined with Jesse’s friends.
“The bar was the best thing I ever did,” del Campo says. “I’m happy to see all the customers and how happy they are.”
Slow Ride
Slow Ride is open Thursday through Sunday, with seating for 300-plus including the patio and 20 employees to keep it all going. Del Campo oversees the kitchen, which serves a breakfast menu filled with American and Mexican options on Saturday and Sunday, sandwiches and burgers at lunch and dinner, and from-scratch specials such as tacos, meat loaf, enchiladas and chicken fried steak.
North Lawrence is a good place to do business, del Campo says, and she’s determined to contribute in many of the ways her brother did. She welcomes the poker runs that come through Lawrence and, in October, hosted Jesse’s Memorial Birthday BBQ Bash, following the pattern of a party Jesse threw for himself every year to raise money to help families in need at Christmas.
This year’s event included a barbecue competition, car and motorcycle show, silent auction, vendors and bands.
“People are so giving,” del Campo says. And that’s what makes it all worth it.