On a Wednesday night in downtown Excelsior Springs, the whiskey bar on East Broadway is closed. So is the wine cafe on Spring Street, and the lounge The Elms set up for October is dark too. On Thursday at 4 p.m., all three start opening within a couple of hours of each other.
That schedule is the most useful thing to know about downtown right now. The places that pour drinks, serve dinner or rent rooms are built around Thursday through Saturday, and sometimes Sunday. The 2026 openings that keep a weekday schedule are a yoga studio on South Thompson Avenue and a coworking space inside a church on Rainbow Boulevard, not restaurants.
The weekend hours, address by address
Here are the posted hours for the downtown spots that are open in the evening.
| Business | Address | Open days | Posted hours |
|---|---|---|---|
| McParty's Whiskey Sips and Craft Cocktails | 109 E. Broadway | Thu–Sat | Thu 4–10 p.m.; Fri–Sat noon–10 p.m. |
| Casa Di Vite International Wine Cafe | 216 Spring St. | Thu–Sat | Thu 4–9 p.m.; Fri–Sat 11 a.m.–9 p.m. |
| The Front Porch Bed and Breakfast | 519 S. Kansas City Ave. | Thu–Sun | Overnight stays |
| The Black Lantern Lounge at The Elms | The Elms Hotel & Spa | Thu–Sun, through Nov. 1 | Food and bar from 6 p.m. |
McParty's is the newest bar downtown. Jim and Becky McCarty opened it on Thursday, August 6, in the space that used to be Huey's Hidden Vault, according to the Excelsior Citizen's August 11 news briefs. The hours on McParty's own site are Thursday 4 to 10 p.m. and Friday and Saturday noon to 10 p.m., and no other days are listed.
Casa Di Vite has almost the same week. Its contact page lists Thursday 4 to 9 p.m. and Friday and Saturday 11 a.m. to 9 p.m., and it's closed Sunday through Wednesday. If you want a glass of wine downtown on a Tuesday, you'll be looking elsewhere.
The Elms sets the pace for the block around it
The newest place to stay downtown follows the same schedule. John and Jill Clark held the ribbon-cutting for The Front Porch Bed and Breakfast this fall at 519 S. Kansas City Ave., which is half a block from The Elms Hotel and Spa, according to the Excelsior Citizen's October 1 story. The paper reported that the inn is open Thursday through Sunday, and rooms generally run about $100 to $150 depending on the room and the time of year. When the Excelsior Citizen interviewed them, the Clarks were getting ready for their first fully booked weekend. They used the ribbon-cutting to raise money for the Excelsior Springs Cultural Guild, raffling off an overnight stay.
The Elms runs on that schedule this month too. It has turned The Tavern into The Black Lantern Lounge from October 1 through November 1, open Thursdays through Sundays, according to the Excelsior Citizen's 2026 fall events guide. The hours change with the night:
- Thursday and Sunday: food and bar service 6 to 9 p.m., then bar only until 10 p.m.
- Friday and Saturday: food and bar service 6 to 10 p.m., then bar only until 1 a.m.
- Entry: ages 18 and up, no reservations, visits limited to 75-minute sessions
So if you're local and want to go, a Thursday or Sunday probably means a shorter night with less competition for one of those 75-minute sessions. Friday and Saturday give you the late bar.
The two openings that kept weekday hours
The 2026 openings that don't follow the weekend pattern have nothing to do with dinner or drinks.
The first is Arise Yoga & Wellness at 405 S. Thompson Ave. Owner Carly Harrington held its ribbon-cutting with the Excelsior Springs Area Chamber of Commerce on August 25, according to the Excelsior Citizen's August 31 profile. Along with yoga and mat Pilates, the studio offers workshops, coaching, Reiki, breathwork, infrared sauna and chromotherapy. It also has a small boutique selling apparel, books and locally focused items.
The difference is in the schedule. Arise's mid-October class schedule has classes every day from Monday through Sunday. The earliest is a 7 a.m. class on Thursday, October 15, and the latest is an 8:30 p.m. class on Wednesdays. On a Tuesday evening, when the bar and the wine cafe are both closed, the October 20 schedule has classes at 5:30 and 7 p.m. Harrington said at the ribbon-cutting that the times are still open to change, as the Excelsior Citizen reported:
"If there are things that you would like to see us offer that we aren't offering now, whether it's a certain type of class or a certain time of day, we'll work on it."
The second is The Co-op at Excelsior Springs, which held its grand opening on May 8 inside First United Methodist Church at 1650 Rainbow Blvd., according to the Excelsior Citizen's May 12 report. Bob Martin and Heather Heckroot lead the project. Its own page describes two things. Café memberships come with daily hot-desk access, a virtual mailbox, Wi-Fi, printing, and coffee and tea. There's also a licensed commissary kitchen that food entrepreneurs, caterers and small businesses can rent by the hour or short term, with cold, dry and limited storage. Rentable desks and a rentable commercial kitchen are built for Monday through Friday work.
So on weekdays, downtown activity comes from people working out or getting work done. Thursday through Saturday evenings belong to the bars, the wine cafe and The Elms.
Fitting the rest of October around that schedule
Halloween season mostly follows the same pattern, so it helps to sort the dates by day of the week. Every event below comes from the Excelsior Citizen's 2026 fall events guide unless another source is named.
- Friday, October 23: Halloween Trivia Night at Casa Di Vite. The Excelsior Springs Area Cultural Guild hosts it. Doors open at 6 p.m. and trivia starts at 7. Teams are three or four people, at $10 each, and costumes are encouraged.
- October 23–31: Halloween Smash Sessions at The Rage Cave. Bookings only, ages 8 and up. If your costume meets the safety rules, you get a free smashable.
- Saturday, October 24: Witch Way to the Wine, noon to 5 p.m. You sample regional wines while walking between downtown eateries, drinkeries, boutiques and galleries. A Halloween Hayride is set for the same day at the Excelsior Springs Golf Course, with the time still to be announced.
- Tuesday through Thursday, October 27–29: Costume Storytimes, 10:30 a.m. These are at the Mid-Continent Public Library's Excelsior Springs Branch, 1406 Kearney Road. They're the only weekday-morning events on the October list.
- Friday, October 30: Erin Wray's Halloween gallery event at Casa Di Vite, 7 to 9 p.m.
- Saturday, October 31: three events in one day. Fall Family Fun Day runs 10 a.m. to noon at the Excelsior Springs Community Center, with trunk-or-treating, a Not So Spooky Swim, s'mores and food trucks. Downtown Trick or Treat runs 4 to 6 p.m. Then comes the Bill Payne Costume Contest at 6 p.m. at Clay Ray Veterans Hall, 208 Veterans Memorial Drive, weather permitting, with hot dogs and soda. Former Excelsior Springs Police Chief Bill Payne started the tradition. Visit Excelsior posts a map of participating merchants.
Halloween falls on a Saturday this year, so the biggest downtown night of the season lines up with the days downtown is already busiest. The next day, Sunday, November 1, is the Black Lantern Lounge's last night.
After that, the next date for the calendar is November 21. Visit Excelsior's annual events page lists the downtown holiday kickoff that day: holiday open houses, the Mistletoe Market, the Elf Factory, the mayor's lighting ceremony and the lighted parade. The Holiday Homes Tour follows on December 5.
When downtown keeps its storefronts open is part of what an Excelsior Springs address is like to live with, and we track it the same way we track sale prices across Clay County. If you own near Broadway or Spring Street and want to know how this year's downtown activity shows up in your home's value, Gateway Real Estate & Auction can help. Start with an Instant Home Valuation, then talk with one of our agents about what nearby Excelsior Springs homes have sold for recently.
