Design mockup. Tenderloin & Tap is an invented business and this page is not affiliated with any real restaurant. The phone number, address and prices are placeholders.

Main Street, Plattsburg

Bar down the right. Booths down the left. Game room through the back.

It is one long room, and where you sit in it decides what kind of night you are having. This page is the room, drawn, with the six places to sit in it.

Pork loin cut and pounded here, beef ground here, hand cut fries, steaks on the weekend. Lunch and dinner for anybody, and the bar keeps going after the kitchen shuts down.

Kitchen Tuesday to Saturday, 11 to 9 Bar open later Friday and Saturday Kids welcome the whole time

Looking down the long room from just inside the front door: the wooden bar and its red stools along the right, booths and tables along the left, pressed tin ceiling, a lit sign on the back wall and a doorway at the far end. — Looking back from the front door before opening. Bar and stools on the right, booths and tables on the left, and the doorway at the end goes into the game room.

The plan

Six places to sit, numbered

The building has been a bar of some kind since the thirties and nobody has moved a wall since. Front door is the only door, and there is one step up into it.

Hatched block is the bar itself Dashed outline is the game room Orange marks the two doors and the window

The front four stools

Nearest the door and the first thing you see walking in. These four are spoken for most evenings by people who have been sitting on them for years, and they will move if you ask. It is the loudest end of the bar because everybody coming in stops there to talk.

At nineLoud, and getting louder
UsuallyRegulars, two deep on a Friday
OrderThe Skillet Melt, $15
BestFriday after eight

The middle of the bar, under the taps

Where you sit if you came in by yourself. Four taps are right there, the back bar is full liquor, and the bottles are domestic and cold enough to have ice in the neck. Happy hour runs four to six Tuesday through Friday and this stretch of the bar is where it happens.

At nineBusy, but you can talk
UsuallyOnes and twos, shift just ended
OrderWhatever is on tap, $3 to $8
BestTuesday to Friday, four to six

The two tables at the front window

The only daylight in the building lands on these two tables, which makes them the lunch seats. Both are two tops and both get taken first at noon. If you are picking up a carry-out order this is where you wait, and it is usually about fifteen minutes.

At nineQuiet, mostly empty
UsuallyLunch, two at a time
OrderThe Mainliner, $13
BestWeekdays at eleven

The four booths along the left wall

High backs, so this is the one part of the room where you are out of it. Families eat here at six and are usually gone before the bar side picks up. The kids plate is a burger, strips or grilled cheese with fries at $7, and the chicken strip basket outsells everything else on that side of the menu.

At nineQuietest seats in the room
UsuallyFamilies, five thirty to seven
OrderChicken strip basket, $10
BestThursday, gravy and mashed potatoes

The big table at the back

Seats eight and it is the only table in the building that does. Give us a day and we will hold it, which is the only reservation we take. It is also the table the weekend steaks end up on, because a ribeye, a sirloin and a KC strip cut in house on a Friday is not a thing one person orders.

At nineDepends entirely who booked it
UsuallyEight or more, called ahead
OrderSteaks, $22 to $34, weekend only
BestFriday and Saturday

The game room, through the doorway

Pool, darts and a jukebox in a room of its own, which is why the noise out front never gets past a certain point. It can be held for a party the same way the big table can. Kids are welcome in here the whole time the kitchen is open.

At nineLoud, but behind a wall
UsuallyWhoever has the table
OrderSides and appetizers, $5 to $10
BestSaturday night

The back game room seen through its doorway: a coin operated pool table under a hanging lamp, a dartboard on the panelled wall, an old jukebox in the corner and daylight through the back windows. — Position six, from the doorway, on a weekday afternoon. That doorway is the whole reason the front of the room stays a place you can eat with kids in it.

Position two

Four taps and a back bar

Four handles, a full liquor back bar and domestic bottles. The bar keeps going after the kitchen stops taking orders at nine, and on Friday and Saturday it goes a good while past that.

DraftFour handlesWhat is on rotates. Ask, or look at the board.

BottlesDomestic, coldCold enough to have ice in the neck.

Back barFull liquorWells and a shelf above them.

Happy hourFour to sixTuesday through Friday, at the bar.

Everything behind the bar runs $3 to $8. There is no cocktail list and nobody is going to hand you one. The specials board over the taps gets rewritten Tuesday morning and that is where the week's food specials go too.

Kitchen stops taking orders at nine sharp on any night. The bar does not close at nine.

Four tap handles on a brass tower set into the worn wooden bar top, a glass mug of draft beer beside the drip tray, back bar bottles soft behind. — Four handles, and what is on them changes. The board over the bar is rewritten Tuesday morning.

What it costs

The short menu, with the actual prices

The full menu is on the table. This is the short version of it.

The Mainliner

$13

A whole pork loin cut, pounded thin, breaded in cracker crumb and fried to order. It comes out wider than the bun by a good three inches and that is the point.

The Skillet Melt

$15

Sliced sirloin, grilled onions and provolone on rye, finished in a skillet so the bread goes hard and the cheese goes to the edges.

Half pound burger

$11

Ground in the back every morning and pressed to order. Never a frozen patty. Quarter pound for the kids.

Chicken strip basket

$10

Hand breaded, with hand cut fries. The most ordered thing on the kids' side of the menu.

Ribeye dinner

$34

Friday and Saturday only, cut in house, with a potato and a salad. Sirloin and a KC strip are on the same nights from $22.

Kids plate

Burger, strips or grilled cheese, with fries.

Search this address and you will find three menu scraper sites carrying prices that are years old and a couple of items nobody here makes anymore. These are the current ones. Carry-out on anything with no fee, usually about fifteen minutes and longer on a Friday. Prices on this page are illustrative for this preview.

The Mainliner on a plain white plate: a hand breaded pork tenderloin hanging several inches past the bun on every side, with lettuce, pickle and onion under it and a basket of hand cut fries beside it. — The Mainliner, $13. The knife on the plate is not for the sandwich.

What the room is doing, night by night

Five nights, and they are not the same night. Sunday and Monday the building is dark.

Kitchen 11 to 9 every night it is open
Night	Kitchen	Bar	The room
Tuesday	11 to 9. New specials on the board that morning.	Happy hour 4 to 6.	Quiet. Every seat in the plan is open.
Wednesday	11 to 9.	Happy hour 4 to 6.	Booths fill at six, bar picks up after.
Thursday	11 to 9. Gravy and mashed potatoes.	Happy hour 4 to 6.	The booths are the busiest part of the room.
Friday	11 to 9. Steaks on. Carry-out runs long.	Happy hour 4 to 6, open well past nine.	Full. Front stools two deep, game room booked.
Saturday	11 to 9. Steaks on.	Open well past nine.	Loud from eight. The back table is usually held.
Sunday	Closed	Closed	Closed
Monday	Closed	Closed	Closed

Who runs it

Arlen Purcell bought the building he used to work in

He grew up two blocks from here, worked in this room as a teenager when it was under a different name, and bought it back. That is most of the story.

The building has been a bar of some kind since the thirties and the tin ceiling has never been touched. Nothing about the layout is a design decision, it is just where the walls are, which is why the plan at the top of this page is worth more than a photograph of the sign out front.

If you search this address you will find the restaurant that was here before, with its old menu and its old phone number, and people still come in asking for a pizza nobody here makes. We are the ones here now. The tenderloin is the thing to get.

Towns we cover

Plattsburg, Lathrop, Turney, Gower, Trimble, Holt, Cameron, Osborn, Stewartsville, Kearney and Smithville, and everybody who comes in off 116 and 33.

Find us

North side of Main, middle of the block

The grill

123 Main St
Plattsburg, MO 64477

Street parking out front and a lot behind the building off the alley. The front door is the only door and there is one step up into it.

Hours

Tuesday to Thursday11 to 9
Friday and Saturday11 to 9, bar later
Sunday and MondayClosed

Kitchen stops taking orders at nine sharp. A table of eight or more can be held with a day's notice, and so can the game room.

Call the kitchen

(816) 555-0128

kitchen@example.com