Jeffrey Gabrielson has always been a little bit different — a bit, as he tells it, on the ornery side.
That’s a quality he said has also always drawn him in when it comes to other people. The people with a little bit of an edge; the “blacklisted” folks, so to speak.
“I feel like I’ve always gravitated towards those people in any capacity, whether it be famous people or just regular people you run into,” he said. “It is kind of a constant reminder that they’re human. When they make errors in judgment and something happens and the hammer falls, it just kind of reminds you that these people you look up to, you still are connected to them. They aren’t perfect either.”
That’s ultimately the type of person he said his new wine bar is for. After all, the bar has a bit of an edge too; a “dark” side. Push open a bookshelf near the bar’s entrance and you’ll find it — a hidden speakeasy that serves as a dark counterpart to the “light” of the wine bar.
Gabrielson and his business partners, Carlos Avalos, Fred Goykhman and Megan Allen, and Laramie Busch welcomed The Blacklist’s first guests into the new “Victorian-style” bar in mid-January.
The Blacklist is at 10519 Mission Road
- The bar opened in a space on the Leawood of the Mission Farms shopping center, just off I-435 and Mission Road.
- Gymboree Play & Music previously occupied that space.
- The Blacklist is open from 2 to 10 p.m. Monday through Friday, 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. Saturday, and 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. Sunday.
The Blacklist is part wine bar, part speakeasy
The Blacklist offers a wide variety of “small production” wines from across the world, either by the glass or by the bottle.
The bar also serves several craft cocktails. Some of those include the “Razzing” with botanical gin, benedictine, lemon, raspberry herbal tea, and egg white, and the “Goat” with Arrete Blanco tequila, lime, agave, cucumber, and jalapeño (the Blacklist’s take on a spicy margarita).
On weekends, the bar will also offer some brunch cocktails, such as Bloody Marys and mimosas.
Carlos Avalos, who designed the cocktail menu, said he drew inspiration from the Prohibition era in the 1920s — during which gin was the star of the show.
“But also, (we wanted to) provide some cocktails with other spirits as well, just to make sure that we have something that can fit everybody’s palate,” he said. “We also have the ability to turn any cocktail into a mocktail as well.”
The Blacklist also offers some limited small bites. For guests with a larger appetite, outside food from nearby restaurants is also allowed.
Once the bookshelf dividing the wine bar and speakeasy is installed, it will double as a secret door, dividing the “light” side (the wine bar with lots of natural light) and the “dark” side (the speakeasy side, with blackened windows and darker colors).
Some touches of glass on the shelf will hint at something more by showing some light and movement from behind the shelf, but only customers who have been to the speakeasy side will know exactly what they’re seeing.
Customers will be able to pass back and forth between the two sides, if they want to. Both sides will also offer the same drinks.
When the bar’s owners first got the keys to the Leawood space, it was just an empty box of concrete. That’s where Fred Goykhman, designer and longtime friend of Gabrielson, came in.
When people walk into The Blacklist, Goykhman said, the goal is to make them feel as though they’ve just stepped into someone’s home — one that just happens to be draped in damask wallpaper, lit by antique chandeliers and filled with locally sourced eclectic vintage furniture.
Working with Kansas City-based furniture dealer Emily Bock, Goykhman spent months collecting pieces and cultivating a space he hoped felt familiar, nostalgic and just a bit mysterious.
“It was exciting — it was like a treasure hunt,” he said. “We didn’t just throw it together. It was carefully curated by all of us.”
The owners aren’t new to the bar business
Prior to opening The Blacklist, Avalos worked in the food and drink industry for about 15 years, bartending for most of that time.
Further west, Gabrielson previously held part ownership of two other bars in San Francisco: Wine Jar and Noir Lounge. The Blacklist, he said, is ultimately a sort of “mash up” of the aesthetic of both of those bars.
“We had a wine bar out there that (Goykhman) designed, and it had kind of a Victorian style feel to it,” he said, referring to the Wine Jar. “Our other bar (Noir Lounge) was a little bit more like 1930s film noir speakeasy vibes. And so I thought it’d be a cool idea to mash up the two, and do two in one.”
Bringing The Blacklist to Leawood, the team said, has ultimately been a “labor of love.” In choosing Leawood, they said they hoped to bring a taste of the downtown Kansas City bar scene to a part of the metro that doesn’t have as many wine or cocktail bars to choose from.
The aesthetic isn’t the only thing that Goykhman said The Blacklist borrowed from the former San Francisco venture he helped design.
At Wine Jar, he said, it wasn’t unusual to see two people sit down near each other as strangers and become friends by the end of the night. That’s the type of thing he said had already begun to happen at The Blacklist’s soft opening, and he hopes that continues.
“People would randomly sit next to a booth and end up with new friends, end up drinking together and prolonging their experience,” he said. “That’s the place we wanted to create — not just where you come in for a drink, but where you potentially could meet people you’ll spend the rest of your life with.”
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