Harry's Closed

One of my life’s more memorable meals was enjoyed at Harry’s in Manhattan, Kansas, in the fall of 1998. Harry’s was a more upscale restaurant located in the first floor at the old Wareham Hotel in Manhattan, Kansas, so I google Harry’s, only to find that it closed its doors in 2020, a victim of the covid fiasco. The owners mention it in the press release, that they could not weather the storm, and they had to close. It had been in business for 30 years. The meal was a traditional bacon-wrapped filet with garlic mashed potatoes, bread, probably a salad, rice pudding for desert, and I washed it down with a few glasses of the house red. I was up in Manhattan, all alone, pretty much, and I had just gotten my first paycheck from working as a grad assistant. I lived in the building, in a small studio apartment in the upper floors, and I’d never had the money to eat at Harry’s, but I smelled it every single day. There was something particularly adult about sitting at the bar and ordering anything I wanted, in this case a very nice Kansas steak, and drinking red wine. I took my time and savored the experience, then I took the elevator up to my apartment and crashed, and I remember thinking about how convenient it was that I didn’t have to drive. That was the only time I ate there, but it’s just one of those meals that stands out.