Common Tiger

Common Tiger is a speakeasy hidden behind a working corner shop at 5616 Johnson Drive in downtown Mission, Kansas, opened in August 2024 by Abby Hans with her parents Jason and Julie and her older brother Mason, in a space that had been the Beardé Salon until it closed in late 2022. The front half is not a facade for show — the Johnson County Post described an unassuming neighbourhood corner store stocking Zapp's chips, boxes of cereal, jars of almond butter, soaps and kitchen accessories, and you can shop it without ever going further. Getting into the back requires telling the cashier the password, which the bar circulates rather than hides completely. Behind the door the room turns dim and plush: dark red couches, low light and, as the Post put it, a lot of tiger decor. Opening hours started at 6pm to midnight on Friday and Saturday, and the family has expanded the operation since.

For a non-drinker the honest position is that this is a cocktail bar first, with zero-proof drinks made to order rather than a standing zero-proof list. The bar changes its cocktail menu monthly around seasonal ingredients and a theme, and the non-alcoholic options rotate with it — a Pink Pony Club has appeared as a mocktail built to drink like a milkshake, and the house Bad Blood Mule has been offered in a non-alcoholic version alongside the bourbon original. That monthly turnover is the important fact: any named list, including ours, is a snapshot rather than a menu, and the right move is to tell the bartender what you like and let them build something. The shop at the front also stocks non-alcoholic drinks you can take through to the lounge, which is a genuinely useful fallback. Given the password entry and the weekend-evening hours, this is a planned outing rather than somewhere to wander into — worth checking their current hours and how the password is being shared before you go.