Neighborhood joint in Kansas City turns into Ravens bar on Sundays. Even this Sunday
There’s a kind of strength in numbers when you’re trying to watch a non-Chiefs NFL game at a Kansas City bar. The servers and bartenders are more likely to change the channel to your team’s game if you arrive with a crowd of like-minded fans backing you up.
“You gotta bring your people,” said David Lewandowski.
He would know. As president of the Midwest Nest, a local Baltimore Ravens fan club, Lewandowski has figured out how to reliably watch the Ravens from inside the confines of Chiefs Kingdom. For the last six years, his group has met every football Sunday at the Side Car, a private event space inside Lew’s Grill and Bar, at 7539 Wornall Road in Waldo.
“We get the game on all the TVs, with full sound and everything,” Lewandowski said. “It’s perfect for us.”
Typically, the games draw around 20 Ravens fans to Lew’s, Lewandowski said. But last Saturday’s Divisional Round playoff game against the Houston Texans saw about 60 people come out. And the group is expecting record numbers this Sunday, when the Ravens go up against the Chiefs in the AFC Championship Game.
“We’re telling people to get there early,” he said.
The Midwest Nest dates back to 2011. It was founded by Baltimore native Jenny Scullin, who moved back to Baltimore a few years ago. (She still handles the group’s social media.)
“Jenny would try to get the few Ravens fans she knew in KC together and coordinate them to watch the games somewhere,” Lewandowski said. “She’d buy people jerseys, buy beers, whatever. And when we were out and we’d see somebody else in a Ravens jersey, we’d get their info and tell them to come meet us next time. And word slowly spread.”
In the early years of the Midwest Nest, they met at Sharks on Shawnee Mission Parkway. Then it was Roni’s Pub off Interstate 35 in Overland Park, then Johnny’s Tavern in Shawnee, then an upstairs event space above the Blue Line in the River Market.
As the group grew, it developed a relationship with the Ravens organization. The team keeps the Midwest Nest well-stocked with flags, bracelets, coozies and other tchotchkes, and when the Ravens played the Chiefs at Arrowhead in 2019, the team threw a party for the group at Lew’s that featured appearances by Ravens announcer Gerry Sandusky and former Ravens linebacker Jarret Johnson.
“They do a fantastic job with their fans in other markets,” Lewandowski said of the team.
This sea of purple landed at the Side Car at Lew’s in 2018. The space has its own bar and is lined with TVs. They have their own bartender and server. They hold 50-50 raffles where half the proceeds are sent to local charities like the Johnson County animal shelter Great Plains SPCA.
“We let them hang up their banners outside on the patio and around the room,” said Lew’s general manager Jim Fisher. “And we have Old Bay seasoning here, which we’ll put on the rim of a Bloody Mary or on fries or our catfish paws. We try to make them feel at home.”
Something called a Purple Shooter goes for $2 on game days.
“I think it’s raspberry liqueur, vodka and Sprite,” Lewandowski said. “But I don’t know if we’re even supposed to know what’s in it. It’s never quite the same.”
Some members of the Midwest Nest have made Lew’s their base for Baltimore events unrelated to the Ravens, like the Orioles home opener and the annual Preakness Stakes horse race. And Lewandowski said the group includes several Chiefs fans.
“We live in KC, you know?” he said. “When they’re not playing the Ravens, a lot of us are rooting for the Chiefs. It’s a great city to be a football fan.”
He’s predicting a Ravens win Sunday: 27-10, maybe, or 27-13. The game will pit the two best quarterbacks in the league — Lamar Jackson and Patrick Mahomes — against each other. Who’d Lewandowski prefer to have leading his team?
“I’d rather have Lamar,” he said. “What’d you think I was going to say?”
