During the day it is easy to drive right by XO HiFi, Kansas City’s newest cocktail and snack bar with a high-fidelity sound system located on the Westside, and not even realize you’ve passed it -- and that is all by design.
Noah Manos, founder of the design-build company, Paper Airplane, located in Denver Colorado is the owner and design partner behind XO. He said he bought the lot that housed Mr. Brook’s garage on the Westside, but he initially had no plans to do anything with the building.
After meeting people who live in the Westside neighborhood, like Will and Ellen Trakas, who own Trakas + Trakas, a local architectural firm, who helped Manos execute the paperwork needed for his new space, they encouraged him to listen to what the neighbors wanted to see there. Manos did, and recruited business partners to help bring his vision for XO to life. He reached out to Will Minter and Mitch Foster who also own ESP, a high-fidelity listening lounge in Denver, and convinced them to partner with him to open his own 30-seat HiFi vinyl lounge here.
“Coming from Denver, we’ve lived through a 15-year period of growth where we had outside developers coming into our neighborhoods and start building without understanding the culture of what was already there. That is how erasure can occur in a neighborhood,” says Manos. “I kept that experience in mind when talking to people from the Westside. I thought, how can I retool my idea, and create something cool and meaningful for the Westside. That is really what anchors the whole design ethos of XO. How do we preserve the fabric of the building that is already there, but also elevate it and create a new context for its next life?”
The HiFi listening lounge has its origins in Japan. Kissas or kissaten are intimate listening rooms found in Tokyo, where listening to new music on an excellent sound system is often given more thought (and budget) than the atmosphere or even the menu. Here is where you can hear a deep cut from an album you may have never heard before with incredible sound quality and clarity. Today, they are referred to as “HiFi bars” in the U.S. and offered with some food and drink.
“What was most interesting about the original building was how anonymous it was. The garage blended in with its surroundings, and it had two very tiny windows. You could easily drive by and never notice it,” explains Manos. “The idea of discovery and anonymity became the design concept for the XO experience. That is where the breeze block screen that covers the front windows on the outside of the building came from. It was intended to peak someone’s interest about what was inside with its solid appearance. XO is not a speakeasy or a clandestine thing that you have to get access to, it is for everyone, but we wanted to feed that joy of discovery for our guests.”
Once inside of XO at night, something magical happens. When it gets dark there is a single streetlight across the street and between that, and the cars that drive by with their headlights on, the light projects through the breeze block and shimmers across the walls of the bar in interesting shapes and patterns that continue to change throughout the evening.
Made for true audiophiles—XO guests come ready to settle in for a drink and some food as a wave of sound ebbs and flows throughout the space around them. In addition to the music selections, ESP also manages the bar program at XO, that has a list of cocktails on tap, beer and a natural wine list.
Local James Beard Award nominee for outstanding chef, Johnny Leach, has developed the food menu for XO, where he is serving Japanese-inspired snacks like edamame dip with fried yuba chips, Agedashi tofu with daikon radish and shimeji mushroom, salmon crudo donburi, or rice bowl, and two delicious sandwiches that have everyone talking --- a nori egg salad sandwich on milk bread and a delicious pork curry katsu sandwich.
Come with your listening ears on and prepare to sit back and enjoy the curated selection of music, food and drinks in the flickering shadows of the breeze block at XO.
XO HiFi, 709 West 17th Street, Kansas City, Missouri, xohifi.com