Tonight we had dinner at Anton’s, a new place for us.  Anton’s is a taproom, restaurant and butcher shop in the heart of Kansas City’s Crossroads district. Dee and I had the smoked salmon sandwich dressed with herb cream cheese, pickles, lettuce and red onions with a side of slaw. Steve and Holan had the house burger with cheddar cheese and picked onions and a side of fries.

The restaurant, which feels like a bar that happens to serve food from the adjoining butcher shop.

This may be the only restaurant in Kansas City that offers both grass-fed and grain-fed beef, cut to order and priced by the ounce. The meat is butchered and aged in-house. Anton, the owner, is also growing herbs for seasoning and greens for salads in the basement.

The building dates to 1898 and originally was a grocery store. For 30 years it was Irene’s, a lounge with a lingering reputation as a three-martini lunch spot. Anton has preserved much of the natural architectural charm to create an atmosphere that’s reminiscent of Cheers meets Ruth’s Chris. The stalls in the lady’s room are created from old doors. Holan thought it was funny that one of the stall doors had a mail slot on it. The other stall had very little light, Dee thought it would be better for me to use the other one because of the lighting.

We ate upstairs. This is a picture of the upstairs from their website. Tonight they had black tablecloths accented with red dish cloth napkins. Over the large opening looking downstairs to the bar, they had fashioned puffy clouds.