by Sara Schafer | sschafer@ruralmissouri.coop
As soon as you walk into Shooter’s Taproom & Kitchen in downtown Chillicothe, you know you’re in for a treat. The charming building is filled with the smells of good food, the long bar features colorful taps of craft beer and the walls are adorned with bright portraits of furry friends. The restaurant is a labor of love and a celebration of community for owners Lea and Andy McLean.
“We wanted to offer food you couldn’t find in a rural Missouri town,” Andy says. “We like to travel, so we take a lot of dishes we see other places and kind of put our twist on them.” Adds Lea: “We want to offer a big-city feel in a small town.”
The couple are accidental restaurant owners. For years, Lea was a nurse and Andy a paramedic. They were on a road trip with their kids to Chicago, stopping at a few wineries on the way. “We started joking around that when we got back, we wanted to open a wine bar,” Andy recalls. “We get back and the next thing I know we’re looking at buildings.”
That “joke,” as Andy refers to it, soon became The Sip, the couple’s first business. Inspired by its success and wanting to add something special to the Chillicothe dining landscape, they opened Shooter’s a few years later, named after their beloved white boxer. Originally, it was going to be modeled after a beer hall, featuring craft brews and hearty snacks.
“But when we started our menu, we thought, ‘Oh that food sounds good, let’s also add that,’ and then we had a two-page menu,” Lea says. “Today our menu includes mostly fresh ingredients. We don’t deep-fry anything; we cook almost everything on our flattop grills. We do a lot of the prep in-house and cook everything to order. The food is fresh and good. We’re proud people can come here for a nice atmosphere, be able to get a drink if they want and have a nice hearty meal for a reasonable price.”
Start your meal with the popular Reuben Dip. “It’s basically like a deconstructed Reuben sandwich,” Lea says. “I love Reubens, but they are just so hard to eat. So, we make this dip. We use corned beef and sauerkraut, so it has all the flavors of a Reuben. Then we toast the rye bread so you can dip it.”
For a hearty entree, order the Sloppy Jolene. To put it simply, this is a regular sloppy Joe but with all the fixings. The housemade, ketchup-based sauce is combined with ground beef. “It’s a sweeter sauce and kind of reminds you of the sloppy Joes you ate at school as a kid,” Lea says. “We put it on a toasted brioche bun and fancy it up with cheese, pickles and French-fried onions on top.”
To complement the Sloppy Jolene, Lea recommends Mexi-Corn. It is similar to Mexican street corn except it is served in a cup instead of on the cob.
Another popular dish is the Stinger Burger. The 7-ounce certified Angus beef steak burger is served between two brioche buns and piled high with cheddar cheese, barbecue sauce, bacon, pickles, mixed greens, tomatoes, crispy French-fried onions and jalapenos.
“We cook it to order however the customer likes it,” Andy says. “It’s a great big hearty burger.”
Customers tend to pair the Stinger with the housemade potato cakes. “We have some people who come here just for our potato cakes,” Andy says. “It took six months to get them the right consistency and flavor, but we finally got it.” Mashed potatoes are mixed with some spices, rolled in panko breadcrumbs, then flattened and grilled.
Be sure to save a little room for dessert. Lea’s favorite is Monkey Business, which is a cupcake-sized version of monkey bread. The cinnamon-flavored dish will remind you of your grandma’s cooking. It’s extra decadent because it is served warm with vanilla ice cream, caramel drizzle and whipped cream.
Andy’s favorite sweet treat is the Shooter’s Waffle Taco, which is perfect for sharing. “It’s a housemade Belgian waffle with chocolate ice cream and whipped cream,” he says. The dish is drizzled in caramel syrup and topped with mint crystals.
Of course, food is only half the fun at Shooter’s. Beer lovers will appreciate their numerous taps featuring a wide variety of mostly local beers. The cocktail menu features only top-shelf liquor and can rotate with the season or when the staff has a new idea. Margaritas are popular, and you can try a flight of them where you pick a handful of the 10 flavor options. “The flights are really popular, especially in the summer,” Lea says.
If you are a fan of drinks that could double as a meal, don’t miss the Loaded Bloody Mary. The tangy tomato-juice cocktail is adorned with skewers of grilled shrimp, crispy bacon, a hard-boiled egg, a golden Belgian waffle, pickles and olives.
So, the next time you want a special meal in a fun setting, head over to Shooter’s in Chillicothe. “Our food is homestyle but with a fun twist,” Lea says. “We really wanted to bring a quality and special place to Chillicothe, because we are from here.”