Nightlife in Olathe

A rigid Western obsession with time tables and organized schedules has left the American spirit dangerously confined. Today's Groupon offers improvisation, the well-paved road to free thinking, with a ticket to see The Trip Fives Improv Comedy live at the Westport Coffeehouse on January 9 at 6:30 p.m. for $5. Welcome in a new year with unstale jokes you can't see coming, despite your resolution to nurture clairvoyance.

Record Bar's chefs, bartenders, and bookers mix a menu of comforting pub fare with a love of music. Each dish entertains minds as well as taste buds with names that invoke their obsessive knowledge of rock history, such as in the Ian MacKaye vegetarian pizza or The Nuge sandwich, which comes stuffed with capicola, prosciutto, and Genoa salami. Hand-packed burgers or chicken penne pasta plates can also perform as an opening act for a cavalcade of live bands, such as relentlessly touring groups like Deerhoof along with regular acts like Bob Walkenhorst. New friends and groupies alike can share beers and burgers over weekly trivia each Thursday.

You can strum a guitar while blowing a French horn and clinking your cymbal-knees together, but no one will pay a lick until you can play two full pianos at once. Today’s Groupon doubles your musicology with $20 worth of admission and beverages at Ernie Biggs Dueling Piano Bar for $10. Singing “Piano Man” is all well and good, but making it “Piano Men” is arguably better.

This hootin’ and occasionally hollerin’ rock 'n' roll bar honors traditional cattle wranglers and two-wheeled easy riders alike with a hearty menu of American classics, including thick burgers and big, down-home meals. Everything is made fresh from scratch, putting it miles of open trail away from typical frozen bar food. Saddle up for a satisfying lunch such as a “twin shaft basket bonanza” of Angus butter burger smothered in steak butter ($4.49), KC cheesesteak or chicken ($6.49), fat boy buffalo chicken strips ($5.99), or several other finger-seasoning delights—all paired with a nest of golden fries.