The Freedom Affair headlines this year’s NKC Fall Fest music and beer festival, an event brought to you by The RiverNorth Business League and City of North Kansas City, and produced by The Record Machine (the music label and booking promoter powering Lemonade Social in the West Bottoms, as well as the band lineups at several area music venues).

In honor of the upcoming Veteran’s Day holiday, active and retired servicemembers get to enjoy the concert for free — with a military discount to the big beer tent featuring 13 of Kansas City’s best locally-owned breweries (including three within walking distance of the event). Highlights include the Jazz District’s new Vine Street Brewing Co., prominent Northland beer and BBQ purveyors 3 Halves, plus Northtown brewers Big Rip, Cinder Block and Outlaw Cigar & Brewing.

The event shines a spotlight on Swift Street, a mixed-use industrial corridor that provided a major role in North Kansas City’s tavern history.

Throughout the latter half of the 20th Century (and even into the early 00’s) this stretch of road hosted a rotating cast of about a dozen tavern establishments that lovingly identified as dive bars. In fact, the stretch was known in some circles as “Dive Bar Row” — leaning into its popularity as a place for after-midnight rowdiness by working patrons letting off steam. “It was a jungle down there on Swift Avenue,” said one-time mayor Dick Scharz about Swift in the 1950s in Bridget to the Past: A Personal History of North Kansas City. “It probably wasn’t the greatest place to raise children, but a lot of fine people came out of it.” The rowdiness got to the point where the City eventually limited the number of after-midnight license permits, in an effort to keep the area under control — a prohibitional spirit that has hung over any attempted expansion of city-sponsored alcohol events (Snake Saturday notwithstanding) until recent years.

Over the decades, the rough edges of Swift Street softened, as taverns opened up as legitimate recreation options for townspeople — and, in the early 21st Century, even families. A lot of that shift was made possible by the rise in independent craft breweries, but in Northtown, specifically, things began to change after the 2008 smoking ban: an ordinance passed by an 8-to-1 vote of the City Council. Dolores Curry, councilmember at the time, said this about the vote, “It’s for people’s health and children’s health and I think we need to work towards that to try to make it a better place for people to live.” The bars vowed to fight on, but ultimately lost.

Locals may not have remembered Swift Street as a great place for children, but families would soon begin venturing to the now-smoke-free bars and grills of NKC (at least those bars that remained after the ban went into effect). Turns out serving cold beer and honestly-priced comfort food appeals not only to off-duty shift workers, but also visitors and town residents alike. The bars that survived the smoking ban (and not many did), evolved by stepping up their lunch and happy hour food, and putting Northtown-brewed beers like Cinder Block, Big Rip and Callsign on tap and in their coolers.

As dive bar culture began to be embraced outside of the audience it was created for, young Millenial professionals and cost-conscious artists and makers discovered places like the family-owned-and-operated Pat’s Pub, embedded among the many warehouses, small factories and distribution centers that still occupy much of Swift Street today. It was a small but loyal crowd. Many were bicyclists enjoying oases along the long but flat blocks of Swift (perfect for evening and weekend rides with little competition from motor vehicle traffic after all the employees cleared out).

Do you remember the taverns of Swift Street?

Meanwhile, craft beer establishments and bar-and-grill restaurants with full kitchens and beer garden-like amenities popped up in the wake of the smoking ban to attract residents to commercial corridors within a closer proximity to NKC’s residential blocks (north of Armour). These businesses favored families and patrons who, generationally, overcame the stigma of bringing spouses and minors into beer establishments. Walk into your favorite craft brewery this weekend (especially if they have a patio) and count the number of families with kids. If these families, by and large, weren’t adventurous enough to help keep the doors open at the now smoke-free taverns on Swift, the employees of industrial NKC continued to do their part.

Smokin’ Guns made a name for itself outside their championship performances in the BBQ circuit, with a modest smokehouse on Swift in the early 00’s. Leveraging its popularity among area workers and food explorers, Smokin’ Guns expanded to a large food hall with a rooftop deck. By the 2010’s, NKC’s new craft breweries were taking off, the Armour theater was refurbished and under new management. Our organization formed to highlight these changes in a bicycle pub crawl called the Pint Path (approaching its 11th year this spring). Things were looking up across town, and despite the shock to Dive Bar Row left in the smoking ban’s wake, a wave of small food and drink businesses saw opportunity.

Closings and new beginnings

To their credit, Pat’s Pub outlasted most of the rest of “Dive Bar Row”, surviving the smoking ban of 2008, surviving COVID-19 quarantine in 2020 (finally closing in the summer of 2022 due to the health issues of its beloved long-time owner, and Pat’s daughter, Kim Kaser). I personally credit the tacos and the frosty mugs, but also Kim’s friendliness and big personality to the bar’s longevity…and I know I’m not alone.

The Chip Shot, Bar 12, River Aces, and the River City Tavern all went defunct. Denim & Diamonds honky-tonk met a bizarre and tragic fate, tied up in probate for decades on end. The Germania Club closed. Even the VFW lodge shut down. On the north side of Swift, The Oak Tree Lounge became Christine’s Firehouse, but maintained some of the rough edges of the place and time, despite moving around the corner and closer to the residential neighborhoods. You’ll see the occasional cowboy and biker, but their crowd is an eclectic mix of residents, regulars and live music fans. Still, this restaurant and music venue remains the lone true Dive Row-era survivor this side of I-35. A slate of weekly live music and a delicious hubcap-sized tenderloin keeps the regulars coming back, but location is everything and they have a great one north of Armour Road.

But now, the southern half of Swift Street is seeing a resurgence in interest– as small warehouses are converted into unique commercial offices, sharing blocks with mechanics, body shops and supply stores. Two previous festivals dubbed “The Swift Mile” (run by the planners behind Snake Saturday) saw thousands descend on the area in the mid-2010s to celebrate the rising interest from art studios and coffee shops like Dare to Dabble. Local celebrity chef Tito de Dios opened up Chef Tito’s, a restaurant and dance club with neon palm trees visible from the street. Scimeca’s has located their flagship market and deli not far from the recently-opened b4 Bakery and Eatery (the public-facing sandwich shop of Sugar & Spice Catering) — both businesses moving, respectively, into spaces vacated by businesses from the first wave of Swift’s transition: Grain to Glass (a craft beer bar and supply shop inside the old Germania Club) and The Brewkery (a kombucha brewery and taproom run by Fall Fest vendor Lucky Elixir). Smokin’ Guns has since shuttered its doors, a casualty of COVID-19 — a reminder that each closure creates a larger distance between publicly open shops and food and drink establishments. Hence the mission behind this festival: NKC may be on the rise, but we don’t want this historic corridor to be overlooked.

Sean Galloway, owner of Lucky Elixir (who has since expanded to a new location within North Kansas City) teamed up with Kiley Sutter of Velo Garage in 2023 to continue the momentum of prior pre-COVID efforts from The Swift Mile. “A small, grassroots festival with the support of the City is hard to find these days,” says Galloway. “Our goal is to eventually grow into a multi-day event that will stretch for several blocks along Swift and potentially create development and reinvestment, while creating a vehicle for RiverNorth to further its mission.” That mission of support for small and unique storefront owners is best summed up in the gamble that the bike shop and bar Velo Garage and Tap House has taken in its location deep into the mixed-use industrial corridor of Swift Street.

Beer and Music a winning formula for bike shop and bar

Fall Fest co-host Velo Garage and Tap House (who works with Nathan Rausch’s Record Machine to book live music at their backyard stage and beer garden throughout the year) planted its flag in 2017 in a shuttered costume shop, opening the metro’s first bike-shop-meets-craft-beer-bar, and still today curates one of the best craft beer lineups in the city. It’s a hangout oasis for thirsty riders to lounge and listen to records on comfy sofas, or play ping pong and shuffleboard in the decked-out taproom. On weekends, it’s a place to catch some amazing musical acts in a small outdoor setting.

That celebration of the city’s best beer and music will take over the block outside the shop from noon to 5 p.m. on Saturday, November 2 — as Record Machine brings their friends The Freedom Affair, Honeybee, Timbers and Whiskey Mash Band to play a five-hour show with proceeds benefiting The RiverNorth Business League, a 501(c)6 supporting the locally-owned storefronts that make Northtown an affordable and welcoming “third place” between home and work for people on both sides of the river. RiverNorth works with all manner of independent breweries, burger stands, coffee shops and record stores to interface with City officials and landlords to promote policies that are friendly to public-facing small business and local residents alike.

The event will also feature food trucks, coffee, cocktail tastings, a kids’ pickleball court and other yard games, face painting and sidewalk chalk area.

What’s on tap?

The festival this year welcomes another stacked lineup, including: Boulevard Brewing, 3 Halves, Casual Animal, City Barrel, KC Bier Co., Rochester Brewing & Roasting, Stockyards Brewing, Torn Label, Transport Brewery, Vine Street Brewing, Northtown-brewed Lucky Elixir kombucha, local breweries Big Rip, Cinder Block and Outlaw Cigar & Brewery — plus cocktail samples from Northtown-distilled Restless Spirits and Mitch e Amaro cocktail supply shop and bar (located in downtown NKC!)

Beer fest tickets are $35 at the door for unlimited 6-oz pours, plus a commemorative glass taster sponsored by Big Rip, Cinder Block and Grandstand Glassware. Presale beerfest tickets are only $25, and active-duty and retired military can get in for just $15 at the door (with proof of military or veteran ID).

Beer fest tickets include concert admission, with bands Honeybee, Timbers and Whiskey Mash Band opening for headliner The Freedom Affair. Food options will be provided from several area food trucks, as well as Velo Garage and Tap House’s pizza kitchen, b4 bakery (located near the north entrance), as well as BBQ samples from 3 Halves and samples of baked goods from McLain’s Bakery.

Patrons who don’t plan to partake in the beer festival can get in for just $10 at the door, and $5 presale.

We can’t wait to see you down at our bikeable food and drink oasis, connecting the downtowns of North Kansas City and Kansas City, MO. Bring the family for craft activities and some absolutely electric rising stars in the music industry.

…The way locals revel on Swift Street may look different from decades past, but good food, top-notch local beer and community gathering are what embodies the efforts of our organization. We hope you fall in love with the hospitality found in this scrappy industrial corner of North Kansas City. We’ll see you all on November 2!

For presale tickets, check out www.nkcfallfest.com.