Photograph by Kevin A. Roberts
It might be the state song of Kansas, but “Home on the Range” just took a local turn. David Bailey designed Baileys’ Range, a gourmet burger-and-milkshake joint, as a rural-meets-industrial-meets-creative take on the conventional standard. Immediately inside the 6,000-square-foot space—which feels double that size—stands a communal table, straight as a draftsman’s line and napped for 40, illuminated from above by Edison bulbs socketed in a series of weathered, two-handled milk jugs. Variously shaped windows (some from Bailey’s own home) hang from small-gauge cable along a showstopping wall, which segregates a kitchen that cobbles its own hamburger buns, condiments (served in nifty jam jars), and 18 flavors of ice cream. Along a racetrack-shaped mezzanine, diners can gape overtly from tables on the inside rail or spy out the window on urbanites strolling 12 feet below. The Range’s menu is extensive and aggressive, with more protein varieties than the Ponderosa: local grass-fed beef burgers, plus bison, pork, lamb, chicken, and veggie variants. And to wash it down, there are “boozy” lemonades and floats, as well as a dizzying array of bottled carbonation. Everybody now, in your best Willie Nelson: “Home, home on the…”
