Business Casual

I had the opportunity to go to lunch with Jeff Fluhr last week. He’s the new president of the Wichita Downtown Development Corp.

Naturally, we chatted about downtown. Fluhr sees the Arkansas River as a key component to downtown revitalization. That’s what the mayor says, too. In fact, everyone seems to bring up the river, but not many people seem to be doing much about it.

Take the Hyatt Regency Wichita. The city owns it, right? Why, then, was there extensive remodeling of the main restaurant and bar at the Hyatt, but still no incorporation of the river?

I’m sure it would have cost more, but this could have been the perfect opportunity to reposition the restaurant to overlook the river, preferably through huge picture windows. And an accompanying outdoor patio would have been a must. Done correctly, the restaurant and bar could lure Wichitans — not just travelers — to stop in.

Then again, even a river view might not attract me with prices like $22 for two less-than-generous pours of wine, which I was recently charged there.

Still, I think the remodeling was a lost opportunity.

I hope Jeff can work with the city to ensure we take advantage of the next one.

Except for maybe some small children and Santa himself, I doubt there are many people who are as excited about the Christmas season as I am. I put up all my decorations the weekend after Thanksgiving and don’t take them down till New Year’s Day. I watch all the Christmas specials, and if I miss them, I rent them. I sing Christmas carols in the shower and have been known to lead group sing-a-longs at parties. In fact, I even still carol door-to-door!

However, even I don’t want to hear Christmas songs all day and all night this early in the season. But two Wichita stations are already at it. I don’t understand. Who wants this? What do the stations get out of it? Is it that much harder to run regular programming until at least after Thanksgiving? Sorry, but they’ve lost my business until then.

I get that not everyone wants to talk to me. Fine. I understand.

But it really, really, really irritates me when I call to interview someone and I’m told they can’t be reached because they’re out of town.

Really? Hmmm. No cell phone? No e-mail? They’re not calling in for their messages?

Hello! It’s 2008. Time to think of new excuse.

If you’re planning on dressing as a chef this Halloween, good luck finding a toque. You know, the tall, funny white hat that’s been a part of the official chef’s uniform dating back to the 16th Century.

At least, it used to be part of the uniform. While searching for a couple of toques to decorate pumpkins for Trick-or-Treat Street, we discovered most chefs are opting not to wear toques anymore.

Ty Issa at Larkspur checked with his staff and called back to say sorry, everyone is wearing ball caps these days instead. He recommended calling the Wichita Country Club since those chefs tend to still wear toques. Not so, reported club event coordinator Darian Tjaden. A quick check with her chefs revealed that they, too, are wearing ball caps. But she called over to the Airport Hilton for us, and a chef there found a couple of paper toques.

After struggling to get the toques to stay on the pumpkins’ heads (not to mention our own when we tried in fun), I must say I think the ball caps seem to make a lot more sense.

One question, though. Toques used to denote who outranked whom in the kitchen depending on their height. What ranks now? A Phillies cap over a Rays?

The Buble concert was fabulous Friday night. The Kansas Coliseum? Not so much.

First, at the side of the venue I entered, there was one — ONE — person scanning tickets to let people in. It was ridiculous. I recently attended the Springsteen concert at the Sprint Center in Kansas City, and somehow 18,000 people seemed to get in faster than the 6,000 for the concert here.

Then, for some reason, my ticket wouldn’t scan. So I’m standing at the turnstile feeling like a reject from a line outside the most popular club in Vegas, and one of the Coliseum employees kicked me back outside to wait in shame in the fierce wind while he went to investigate.

And, hey, I’ve been (rather unbelievably) climbing the bleachers at Cessna Stadium lately, but the small steps near my nosebleed seats at the Colesium scared me so much due to the lack of handrails that I didn’t move the whole concert for fear of falling in the dark.

Now, obviously, the Coliseum is old and outdated, and we’re going to have the more modern Intrust Bank Arena soon. But my point is that my complaints are the sort that don’t really take money, at least not much, to fix.

When they open our sparkly new arena, I hope they remember it’s often the little things that mean the most for a concertgoer. A little friendliness, an ease of getting around — or just getting in – could add up to an experience that someone would want to repeat.