BonnerSprings.com

Twenty-two years isn’t normally celebrated as a milestone, but it was for Kobi’s Bar and Grill, 113 Oak St., on Saturday.

That’s because its owner, Margarite Kobialka, or Mama, as regulars and staff know her, had suffered a stroke just before the bar’s anniversary last year.

The celebration featured 200 pounds of smoked ham, brisket and beef, which was about the same estimate of the number of current and former regulars that attended the event, said Vickie Kobialka, Margarite’s daughter and manager of the bar.

Vickie had the idea to start a sports bar in 1986 as a way to help her mother, who survived the Holocaust, cope with her husband’s death two years before.

“Mom was pretty upset about Dad passing away, and she’d always wanted to own a business, like a bakery,” Vickie said.

So she convinced her mom to buy a bar that had recently closed and turn it into a sports bar.

Kobi’s was originally “about half the size it is now,” Vickie said. “We had a small kitchen when we opened, not as fancy as it is now.”

It was called “Kobi’s Club and Deli” originally, but with a larger kitchen and menu offerings, it’s now “Kobi’s Bar and Grill.”

Everyone pitched in, Vickie said, and “the whole family started the bar together when she bought it. We closed it down, cleaned it, remodeled it.”

Through the years, the bar grew, Vickie said.

“We just kept adding on,” she said, including an expansion of the kitchen.

“We all did cooking, bartending, waitressing, cleaning,” Vickie said. “The family just pitched in; we all had our own duties.

Mama was the main cook. Her taco recipe we still have, and the cheesecake we kept too.”

Eventually, her siblings moved away after starting families, leaving Vickie, the middle child, to run the bar.

“I kept it going and ran it for Mama,” Vickie said.

The bar’s original regulars still come, and there are new customers every year as well, Vickie said, who have just moved to the Bonner Springs area.

Although Margarite is partially paralyzed, Vickie said, “her mind is still good. She does occupational and speech therapy; it keeps her going.”

That illness also didn’t stop her from enjoying Saturday’s event.

“Oh my God, yes, she enjoyed herself,” Vickie said. “When they opened the front door and everyone said ‘Happy anniversary,’ she was really happy.”

Comments

1. 

   lovsofbal (anonymous) says…

   Happy Anniversary from California Mama,
   We miss you.
   Mike Hyland

   November 7, 2008 at 6:11 p.m.

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