This Week in Kansas City: the lights were on at Q13, a neighborhood that kept its ash trees, and sixty years in the burn unit

Welcome back to This Week in KC, The Stare’s weekly recap of the stuff that actually makes this a city worth living in.

A note on the date: this edition is retropublished. It covers September 5 through September 11 and was assembled and published on September 12. The doors still opened, the meals still got packed, and a week gets its page in the record whether or not we were at our desk for it.

Each section carries a counter: how many stories fell into that corner of local life this week, across the KC newsrooms we read. The bar shows how it stacks against the others. It’s not a ranking by volume. It’s a ranking by new to you.

Three weeks ago this column led with a storm that stripped northeast Kansas City, Kansas, and last week it printed the number the Wilson’s Pizza lot hit for its neighbors. This week KCTV5 found the bar that kept its doors open while the power was out.

Q13 Sports Bar & Grill, at 2724 N. 13th St., opened during the outage, per KCTV5. Owner and operator Tamara McConnell: “We let them know we are open if you need electricity, a place to come for the evening we’ll be here.” She said being overlooked is familiar in her part of town: “Often times, it’s stigmatized as a neighborhood that you don’t want visit. Well we know that not to be true. You never meet a stranger at Q13.” The same kitchen is now one of the 11 in KCK’s first Black Restaurant Week (more on that below), and her read on why that matters is the plainest anybody gave this week: “The restaurants here are family owned. The culture is family, bringing people together.”

Where the recovery stands, per KCUR (reporting first published by the Kansas Reflector): the Legislative Coordinating Council voted unanimously to extend the state disaster declaration for Wyandotte County to October 4. 32,000 cubic yards of debris had come off the curbs, about 75% of the job, with three to four weeks left, said Jonathan York, the state’s deputy emergency-management director, who also said grid repairs were finished. Senate Minority Leader Dinah Sykes, in the same meeting, said dozens of homes still had no electricity as of the week before last — “They can’t have the debris removal because the power lines are down.” Both are on the record; we print both.

Friday, on the twenty-fifth anniversary of September 11, more than 700 volunteers filled the T-Mobile Center floor and packed more than 193,000 rice-and-lentil meals for Kanbe’s Markets, the fresh-food-access nonprofit, per FOX4 and KSHB 41. It was the first year the national nonprofit 9/11 Day brought its meal-packing project here, one of 50 cities this year. Kanbe’s CEO Maxfield Kaniger said most of the meals will be in people’s homes within a week or so: “When you see something like this, I believe it’s possible.”

In Columbus Park, the two florists at 922 E. 5th St. own their building now. Lily Williams and Betsy Ford opened Lily Floral Collective there in November 2021 on a lease; as of August 31, per Northeast News, the building is theirs, after 18 months of saving and a GoFundMe that helped cover the down payment. Ford: “When we were faced with move or buy, moving is not an option.” Williams’s pitch is the simplest ask in this edition: “If you aren’t planning a wedding or special event, you can support us by sending your loved one flowers.”

Overland Park once had about 10,000 ash trees, roughly a quarter of its canopy. The emerald ash borer was first detected there in 2014, and since 2023 the city has spent close to $2.6 million removing more than 6,000 dead or dying ash from its streets, with $3 million more budgeted to replant in other species, most of it federal pandemic-relief money, per the Johnson County Post. About 600 healthy ash trees are left in the whole city. Nearly half of them stand in one neighborhood.

The Park at Forest Green, off Metcalf and 143rd Street, decided roughly a decade ago to inject every ash it had. The HOA pays about $16,000 every two years out of dues; of 300 ash trees catalogued in the roughly 120-home neighborhood, about 250 are still standing. President Brent Wright, who bought his house there in 2002: “We weren’t willing to sacrifice all those years of growth for these beautiful trees.” City forester Laura Peterson said other neighborhoods started and quit, and the city took their ash out; this may be the only one that tried to save all of them. “I think they’ve made an amazing choice.” The honest clause is hers too: it is a cost most neighborhoods without an HOA cannot carry.

In Kansas City, Missouri, the people picking up the parks wear shirts that say so. KC Parks and Recreation Ambassador Program volunteers are out three or four times a week, per KCTV5; Johnnie Lee has done it for six years, and his recruiting pitch beats anything we could write: “On the back of the shirt, you’ll see in big letters: VOLUNTEER. So, come on down, people. Help us out. We appreciate it, and we will love you more!”

In the Historic Northeast, the St. John Avenue traffic-calming project is in its final phase, per Northeast News: four intersections (Indiana, Monroe, Jackson, and Kensington) closing one at a time, about three weeks each, for raised crosswalks and ADA ramps out to the Gladstone Boulevard circle. The Indian Mound Neighborhood Association started this after years of watching drivers blow past 35 mph; Phase Two is funded by the city’s Vision Zero program. The limit drops to 25 mph, repaving starts by September 28, and everything is due done by the end of October.

In south Kansas City, KCATA’s Route 50 has run north of the Plaza since July, straight to the IRS at 20th and Pershing — the connection the Fifth and Sixth Districts lost when the Brookside-Main route was cut in 2025, per the Martin City Telegraph. The catch is at the other end: construction equipment for an apartment building at 74th and Broadway is sitting on the 74th Terrace and Wornall terminus, so the bus has been stopping at the QuikTrip at 72nd instead, a third of a mile that costs transferring riders their connection. KCATA planning director AJ Farris said the stop should be back by the end of September. Mark the date.

On Sunday, September 13, Cultivate KC’s self-guided Urban Grown Tour opens 15 farms and gardens across the metro from 10 to 4, $10 a person, kids under 12 free, per Flatland and IN Kansas City. Among them is Bread & Roses Farm at 2323 Agnes Ave., four vacant lots turned into a 30-member CSA, where farmer Flora Mahaffy remembers a six-year-old who showed up with quarters: “I want to try this tomato.” Closed-toe shoes, no dogs.

The American Royal cut the ribbon Thursday on its Barns & Exhibition Hall at the new Wyandotte County campus: 390,000 square feet, the first phase of a $375 million complex, and the first facility the organization has owned in its 127 years, per KSHB 41. $155 million of the total is STAR bonds (sales-tax dollars pledged to the bonds instead of the state’s general fund), the same 41% public stake this column printed two weeks ago, and the reason the public dates matter: the Royal Showcase Horse Show September 12–13, the World Series of Barbecue September 30 through October 4, and the fall livestock show October 9–25. President Jackie McClaskey, who sat in her first meeting about a new Royal in 2014: “You just gotta have faith and you gotta know that you gotta get it done.”

Mocha Point, the Yemeni coffeehouse that opened in Overland Park in April, will open downtown, “very close” to Union Station, in late 2026 or early 2027, per IN Kansas City. Owner Omar Abdelmoity, an Overland Park native, keeps it open until 10 most nights and 11 on Fridays and Saturdays because “a large motivation for me to even open Mocha Point was wanting to have exactly that — some place where me and my friends could just hang out, play cards, talk.”

In downtown Shawnee, the St. Joseph Athletic Facility opened this week: a 70-year-old former high school stadium rebuilt as a nonprofit community field, about $6 million with new turf, a three-lane track, lights, and a video scoreboard, per FOX4. It is the new home for Catholic Youth Organization football across close to 40 schools on both sides of the state line, shared with Special Olympics Kansas and Sporting KC youth soccer; the Chiefs put in a $250,000 NFL Foundation grant. Lamar Hunt Jr.: “It’s like a front porch.” An eighth grader who played the first game under the lights Thursday had the better line: “You guys should come to our game.”

Two more, per the Johnson County Post. Back Nine Golf is open at 11108 S. Lone Elm Road in Olathe, with four simulator bays, 24-hour access for members, and the Olathe West girls’ golf team already signed on for indoor practice. Hy-Vee has filed preliminary plans for a 93,000-square-foot store near 83rd Street and K-7 in western Lenexa, likely before the Planning Commission on October 5. Preliminary means it will change.

KCK’s first Black Restaurant Week runs through Sunday, 913 Day, with 11 restaurants and select plates at $9.13, per KSHB 41 and FOX4. Last week this column printed the plan; this week the outlets went and ate. At Fast Fred’s Market, 1806 N. 18th St., 63 years in Wyandotte County, family business consultant Anita Taylor still sells penny candy and the homemade cakes her mother started. Her ask: “I know times are hard and pockets are short, but get out to support us this week. We all need to support each other.” At 1930 Classic Kitchen, chef-owner Free Davis told FOX4 the tagline is the menu: “1930, soul food made with love.” The owner of Wilson’s, on the Quindaro corner: “I always call my business a community business. It’s not just me.” Q13, from the top of this page, is one of the 11; the full roster with addresses is in KSHB’s story, and The Stare worked out what $9.13 actually buys last week.

Kansas City Restaurant Week returns January 8–18, 2027, its 18th year, and for the first time 11 days, per KCTV5. The beneficiary is Pete’s Garden, the food-recovery nonprofit that turns surplus prepared food from stadiums, hospitals, and schools into take-home family dinners for roughly 1,000 households a week.

Black Rose Coffee, the 1960s trailer that became a fixture at the Overland Park Farmers’ Market, has a permanent home: the daytime side of Entity Lounge at CityPlace, 11216 Switzer Road, 7 to 2:30 Tuesday through Saturday, per the Johnson County Post. The lounge had paused its own coffee service and the espresso machine was sitting there; owner Marissa Ray: “It was too good of an opportunity to pass up.” The trailer still works the market on weekends.

On Labor Day, an estimated 10,000 people came to Harris Park at 40th and Lane for the fourth Taste of KC, per FOX4. Founder Timothy Hays, pastor at 24 Hour Faith Church: “When you see this address on the news in this area, it’s always crime and violence. If you walk around here, we have every ethnicity, every age group, you have every part of the community. Food brings everyone together.”

From Sarah Sipple’s KC Sipps in The Pitch: For the Love Restaurant Week runs September 12–19 at Butter KC Catering, Jerusalem Cafe, Ruby Jean’s Juicery, and The Russell on Main, with a cut to University Health Foundation; the Lawrence Cocktail Trail (September 10–20) sends $1 a cocktail to the Hospitality Workers Relief Fund; and Kanbe’s Markets (the same Kanbe’s) serves a $15 pancake breakfast Saturday morning with rescued fruit. The honest one, kept on purpose: Patio in Independence has closed, citing financial issues in its own post.

Aline Thomas was born at the University of Kansas hospital in 1947, was hired there on August 16, 1966, at 19, and at 79 is still a surgical technologist there, mostly in the burn unit, one of the hospital’s hardest rooms, per KSHB 41. Everyone calls her Miss A. “It’s like seeing miracles come alive. Seeing a patient that has been burnt all over be able to walk again.” She faced prejudice there too, and says so the way only a 60-year employee can: “All the doctors that was not nice to me are all gone and I’m still here.” Operating room manager Theresa Thomas says she is passionate in a quiet way and lets a learner learn. Miss A’s own summary: “I came here for a job, but I ended up with a career.”

The 128th Johnson County Old Settlers runs Thursday through Saturday in downtown Olathe, per the Johnson County Post. It’s free, with what organizers call the largest parade in Kansas at 10 a.m. Saturday, led by grand marshal Bill Garton: 100 years old, an Army Air Forces veteran, and an Olathe advocate for the deaf community.

In Merriam, the small church that was once the Madam C.J. Walker School landed on the National Register of Historic Places this summer, and Philadelphia Missionary Baptist Church is now raising $4 million to restore it and build a museum onto it, per the Johnson County Post. Walker School families sued in 1948 in Webb v. School District No. 90, and the Kansas Supreme Court’s ruling the next year was a stepping stone to Brown v. Board. Tony Adams, the church’s program coordinator, grew up in South Park: “They only did it so their kids could have the best education just like all the rest of the kids in the neighborhood, period.”

Friday night the Jayhawks hosted Mizzou in Lawrence for the first time since October 29, 2005, per KCTV5. FOX4 asked the Watkins Museum of History’s Andrew Stockmann where the rivalry starts, and the answer is the 1850s: Bleeding Kansas, Quantrill’s raid in 1863, and the first football game on Halloween night 1891 in Kansas City, “just a generation after,” with Civil War veterans in the crowd. KU offensive coordinator Andy Kotelnicki: “It’s a little deeper than just, ‘Oh, hey, we really don’t like Michigan.’”

The rest of the week’s culture, quickly. The Kansas City Underground Film Festival runs September 11–19 at the Charlotte Street Foundation, 3333 Wyoming St., free; “all you do is just come and sit in a chair,” co-founder Willy Evans told The Pitch. Making Movies announced “Una Vida,” out October 30, led by a Spanish-language reimagining of Kevin Morby’s “This Is a Photograph” that frontman Enrique Chi began on his late grandfather’s porch in Santiago, Panama (Dos Mundos). The Mexican Consulate opened “Voces en el Lienzo Público,” 12 murals inside its offices, and Mattie Rhodes Cultural Center has “Nuestra Tierra: Breaking Borders,” curated by Liz González (Dos Mundos). The National WWI Museum and Memorial holds its Centennial Gala September 21, and from September 25 through November 11, on weekends, Liberty’s Beacon will light the memorial with sound and light (IN Kansas City).

A bar that kept its lights on, a neighborhood that kept its trees, and a woman who kept her job for sixty years. See you next week.

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This Week in KC is assembled from coverage across the Kansas City newsrooms The Stare reads daily; each item is credited to the outlet that reported it. This edition was retropublished on September 12, 2026, covering September 5–11. Corrections: corrections@kcstare.com. Know something good happening in KC? tips.