Manifesto

Really cool concept, although drink prices are expensive and the cocktails, although certainly good, aren’t the best thing that’s ever happened to my mouth. This is really only good at this point for taking and surprising someone from out of town because pretty much everyone in KC knows about it.

Different and fun way to enjoy a drink.
Can’t help feeling like you are stepping into the past when you come here. I love the drinks and the atmosphere but be warned… the menus should sit in front of the fire… not above it your will die trying to read it!
LOVE IT!

My friend took me here, and it did not disappoint. Super friendly staff and tasty drinks – the speakeasy on a weekday night was not packed and was a great atmosphere. Definitely recommend!

I’m all about speakeasy’s so when we came across this little gem while visiting KS i couldn’t have been more excited.
They recommend making reservations because the space is small and the demand is high. I believe it was on their website we found a number to text to arrange for our reservation. We went right when they opened and they were filling up fast.
To enter you go through the ally of a restaurant on the corner and you’ll see a door, more than likely propped open, yes back ally– right next to dumpsters and all.
A host is there right when you walk in to take you down the dark stairs to the bar. It’s been sometime since I’ve found myself a classic dark hidden speakeasy. The cocktails were all fantastic and the bartenders were knowledgeable if you had questions. They provided us different tastings of their whiskeys to get a feel of the different tastes.
I started with the fruity pebbles drink that had FRUITY PEBBLES IN IT! Yum! A Heavier drink, but very tasty.
Don’t hesitate about going here… totally 100% worth finding the door in the ally and going!

New York speakeasy in KC! My sister took us here while visiting Kansas City. I am so glad she did! You walk down a dark staircase and are taken to a dimly lit table. Service was very relaxed and she helped me to choose a yummy red bell pepper cocktail. Seriously, so good! The place has amazing drinks without the pretentiousness that usually accompanies a cocktail of this caliber. If you are in town you need to go here for at least one round!

Apparently, I chose a good night for my first Manifesto experience, as I went on the evening they were celebrating their 7^th «birthday.»
Some things they did differently as part of their birthday celebration: no reservations required, had a select menu just for that evening, which featured 8 drinks instead of the full menu, annnnd each drink was only $ 7 (it looks like they usually run in the $ 12-​$ 14 range).
We arrived around 8:30ish that evening and didn’t have to wait at all to get a table for our group of 5. Granted, it was on a Monday night, but for the amount of hype I’ve heard about Manifesto, I figured maybe more people would be clamoring to get in. I’m obviously not complaining though. I felt a little claustrophobic when we first went into the basement that is Manifesto, but that passed after a few minutes. As other reviewers have mentioned, it is pretty dimly lit but that didn’t really bother me — I liked the intimate atmosphere as well and definitely want to come back here for drinks with my husband.
Anyway, back to the important stuff: THE DRINKS. Our table of 5 ordered one of everything and basically passed all the drinks around the table so that we could try all of them. The clear winner was the «Stay Wet” – a «seasonal infused vodka» cocktail. 2^nd place went to another one of their classics — can’t remember the name but I know it was red pepper-​ish. Sounds weird, but it was good. Another unique one featured tequila and jalapeño pepper/​serrano pepper purée that I was sure I wouldn’t like, but I actually found that one to be quite good as well. Our waitress told us that this particular drink was featured on one of Manifesto’s original menus from when they first opened and that they had brought back the bartender who created it for this one night just to make it again. I thought that was a pretty cool backstory. Overall, i really have nothing negative to say about any of the cocktails we tried.
I’d love to come back here again on a «normal» night, where I need to get a reservation, and pay twice the amount of money for a cocktail, and see if my 5 stars will hold up.

This is the greatest bar on earth. This is not an exaggeration. Tommy vs. the machine is incredible… The girl from Cadiz… You really can’t go wrong.
Make this a priority.

I just feel like this place is over hyped and if weren’t for the exclusivity of it, it wouldn’t be anything special. Once I talked to the bartenders and they were frat boys at UMKC — I was a little disappointed to be paying so much for a drink made by a college kid.
Another annoying thing is that the music is kinda loud and crappy (rappy). For a bar that is supposed to be a speakeasy, that was really disappointing.
That being said the drinks ain’t bad! I had the horsefeather last night. It was pretty good.
I would recommend experiencing this place once, but unless I’m at the Rieger/​nearby for another event I won’t be going out of my way to come here.

There are not a lot of options for higher end cocktail bars in Kansas city so I have been here multiple times. Manifesto makes delicious cocktails. I just dislike hanging out in a dark, dingy basement. The reservation system is convenient however, I prefer to just sit in the bar upstairs.
This is your spot if you like hanging out in dark basements.

How do you craft enough demand for a bar to charge for outrageously expensive drinks?
Make it hard to find and require reservations or get the «I can text you when a table opens up» and have to wait over an hour.
Drinks are well prepared. But why pay $ 10 or more for a drink after waiting? The Rieger is right upstairs and they will actually just let you sit at a bar without having to wait an hour.

I should probably clarify with this review that I’ve only been to Manifesto once. However, I’m iffy about going back, so I thought I would go ahead and write about it.
I love the idea behind Manifesto. I love that it’s under one of my favorite restaurants in KC, and that they serve specialized cocktails and that they try to sell it to you as a speakeasy. This seemed totally like something I would love, so the anticipation was high.
We went to Manifesto on Halloween. What I expected, was classy bartenders and 20’s music and using our reservation (which was made several weeks in advance) to sit at a table and enjoy some delicious drinks.
What I got, was a place that looked like a child had decorated it for the holiday with fake cobwebs, a bartender who was wearing a full face of zombie makeup, a Royals game blaring over the speakers and my boyfriend and I perched on two tiny stools at the bar.
Call me crazy… but if I have a reservation weeks in advance– I expect to sit at a table.
My boyfriend and I each had two drinks. He liked both of his and I really liked my first one. My second one was a Halloween special that had Absinthe in it. The bartender didn’t tell me (and there was no indication on the menu) that my drink would come out in a coffee glass… and served super hot after they poured boiling water in with the Absinthe. I’m not a hot drink person, so this was startling and I didn’t really drink this one. A heads-​up would have been appreciated.
Overall, I think this place needs to stay consistent. People come here to experience a certain kind of atmosphere. They sell an image– a 1920’s style speakeasy– and that’s an image they must stick to relentlessly and not defer from, because that’s what people are paying for. I don’t think that baseball games should be blared so loudly that you can’t hear the person you are sitting next to (in fact, baseball games shouldn’t be played at all– keep the ambiance with music, please), and I think there should be no indication of any holiday taking place downstairs. If I wanted to be served by a guy in zombie makeup and listen to the Royals while surrounded by fake cobwebs, I could have done that for far less than $ 14 a drink. Hell, I could have done that in a dark basement at a Halloween party and paid nothing for the experience.
I can’t say I’ll never give this another try, but I can’t say that I’ll be back either. Overall, I feel my one experience at Manifesto so far was underwhelming.

As far as bars go, this is a true cocktail lounge. They have full menu of designer drinks, most or all of them are $ 11. I would have liked to take pics, but there are no phones allowed. We each had the Sazarac, which was one of the signature drinks. I could have had several. The room is in the basement, mostly candle light. I would recommend this for the true pre-​prohibition era bar fan. The ambiance is worth while. Also, try the home made beef jerky.

Tucked away inconspicuously in the basement of the Rieger Hotel Grill and Exchange, Manifesto is accessed by an unmarked back door that looks like an employee-​only entrance to the restaurant. But thru this door and down the stairs on the right you’ll find yourself in a dark space that’s decked out as a perfect reflection of the legacy of the place as a prohibition speakeasy. From what I can tell of other reviewers, service can be slow but I experienced none of this during an unplanned weeknight visit in December. I went with one of their signature cocktails, the smokin’ choke, a great concoction of Four Roses bourbon with Cynar (an artichoke liqueur that I’d never previously heard of) and some maple bitters. An awesome drink in an awesome setting at prices that are not unreasonable (you’d pay double in a major city for a similar experience). And Al Capone pissed here! BOOM!

We started our evening with a quick drink at The Rieger with the main purpose of finding out how to get into the speakeasy that is part of this restaurant and hotel. Luckily it was a summer downtime in Kansas city on a Monday evening and while we hear that a Saturday night can has to be booked a month in advance we were quickly whisked down into the basement speakeasy. The candle lit dark and secretive atmosphere was awesome as was the finger food.
The most impressive thing about the place was the staff. Once they learned it was our first night in Kansas city and we were exploring everyone was pitching in with ideas for how to make our stay better and more enjoyable. They started with the bars and made us their favorite cocktails as well. The head bartender showed us a 1950’s Whiskey that was from the original run of a local distillery (which had closed 20 years earlier), what a cool piece of history.
Once we left the service did not stop. We went to dinner then a bar one of the bartenders had suggested and true to his word that this was a place he liked to go to he showed up a few minutes after us and generously offered to buy us his favorite drink at the place. Soon his friends started joining up and we got to meet them. We liked their group and started a bar crawl with this crowd of bartenders and got hooked up at almost every bar we went to that night, it was magical. The hospitality from the locals in Kansas city was above and beyond, it did not feel like a small Midwestern town but rather a mecca for trendy young people and bohemians mingling together. I could not be more happy with any night out than this one that had started at Manifesto.

I really like this place… They did add more (not a lot more) lighting since last Ive been… So its not PITCH black… I look better in the dark, but with the new lighting at least your drinking dates dont have to envision their celebrity crush instead of seeing you 6.5÷10 dimly lit face.
New thing is to suggest one of their shooters aka mini beers to start… Id pass on the shooters and just order a drink instead.
Still great cocktails when you want to enjoy yourself and some conversation.

Manifesto is my favorite cocktail lounge in KC. Be sure to make a reservation ahead of time, which can be accomplished via text message. I mean who wants to deal with other humans?
The Beautiful Red Bell cocktail is a must-​try. It smells like a summer vegetable garden and is worth the wait.
The atmosphere is dark and sexy, so don’t be a knob and make sure your flash is disabled.

With two kids we don’t get much adult time. If you’ve got small children you know exactly what I mean. I wanted to take my wife someplace nice, new to us, and reasonably quite. I took a gamble and texted in for our weeknight reservation.
My wife was nervous as we made our way around back through the alley. «Are you sure? I don’t see a sign here!» I led her through the back door and pointed to the sign just inside that calmed her nerves and pointed to our destination ahead. We walked down the stairs and through the long dark hallway.
We were given the choice to sit just about anywhere. I asked to sit at the bar. My wife was not happy, requesting a booth. «But what if there’s fire and shit baby? I want to watch them make the drinks!» She gave in and we sat at the bar hoping to see drinks bathed in flames.
Our bartender for the evening was Tex. He was knowledgable, friendly, and overall was an excellent host and tour guide. I wanted to try EVERYTHING on the menu. He quickly pointed us around the drink menu and suggested food too. We let him know we’d be going upstairs for dinner and decided on more drinks instead.
Every drink was made to order with style and precision. How many we tried will remain our secret (don’t want to be labeled a lush!) but let’s just say there where no losers. Each cocktail was delicious all the way down to the special ice that was used. Seriously — drinks are taken to a whole other level here, to the point where each cocktail has a specific variety of ice!
We could have spent the entire evening there in the dark, trying new things, watching fire, smelling citrus, and making conversation. This was the perfect place to pre-​game for an equally as wonderful experience at the Rieger. We’ll most definitely return.

I was so looking forward to this place. And it just didn’t live up to my expectations.
We made a reservation for 10 p.m., we were sat in a booth in a dark corner. Nice. We were in our booth by 10:06 p.m. We did not receive our drinks until 10:40 p.m. My first drink, the red bell was delicious, absolutely smooth, easy and delicious.
My second drink was a coconut, almond, vanilla concoction served in a tiki bamboo glass. I can’t remember the name, but maybe because I’ve tried to block it from my memory. It was awful. I couldn’t finish it. However, the second round only took about 10 minutes to get to the table. We left.
The idea for this place is so cool, and maybe we were just there on an off day, but I don’t think I would go back, in fairness this will probably be my last visit to Kansas City.
Go upstairs, eat and drink there. The Rieger is awesome.

6 years ago now manifesto opened in the renovated basement of Rieger Hotel whose claim to fame lie in its ties to Al Capone and distilling whiskey in «the wetest block of the world». Today it has room for 48 in a dimly lit speakeasy inspired space.
For a five star experience consider the company you want to keep, a date, a friend, how many do you wanna roll in with. It’s close proximity interaction. There is only one table that holds a tight 8. The rest are at most 6, comfortable 4 and than there’s the bar. Next make your reservations by texting this number 816 536 1325. Two weeks ahead for a weekend, the day before for a weekday. You can show up as a walk in but be prepared to wait. Once in watch your head going down the stairs. First time or bringing a first timer sit at the bar. You may have a go to drink or preferred label and if its on the menu lucky you. You can ask to change up the drink, it will not be done. Order from the menu or ask the bartender/​server for recommendations. They will probably ask what kind of flavors your into, whatever drink they suggest go with that and you will love it. You will think to yourself «I must be a bourbon drinker now», nope they are just that good. Know that the drinks run pricier and stronger than most 10 – 13 is average. I’ve seen the most seasoned drinkers get soused on two or work one for the evening and get a beautiful buzz. For full effect enter smelly dumpster back door or just go through front hotel entrance.
Our bartender was Tex, he knows his stuff. Had a good time at the bar watching and discussing the drinks. Next Absinthe drip, love that this is an option.

High praise led me and the boyfriend to Manifesto after a quick bite to eat upstairs. We were able to take seats at the bar despite a full room and many reservations, but we were told there was only enough time for one drink. As this was our plan, we gladly accepted.
I knew vaguely what I wanted and told the bartender: stirred, brown, herbal, boozy and possibly containing an amaro. He pointed to one drink on the menu, but I found it too simple and too similar to what I most often have. I wanted something different. Unfortunately he couldn’t offer many other suggestions. I’m surprised he didn’t just go off the menu and craft something new. Instead, I chose a shaken drink.
It contained more citrus that I had hoped for but was plenty boozy and had a nice herbal flavor. The bartender shook it so hard that there was a layer of tiny ice chunks on top, which made it hard to drink at first. Thankfully those melted after a few sips.
The boyfriend also chose a shaken drink with a fair amount of booze and citrus, though I can’t remember the names. We sat back, sipped and enjoyed.
I’d gladly return but hope that the bartender will be a little more flexible and eager to help, rather than encouraging me to settle.