Chicken S#!T For Charity

Story by Dave Eckert

It’s called Chicken S#!T Bingo, and you will find it happening every week as part of Whiskey Tango Friday night’s at Char Bar in Westport. I’ll admit it’s more than a little crude, but it’s both fun and profitable. And, the best part of Chicken S#!T Bingo is that half of the profits benefit a local charity. I should say charities, because throughout the summer run of the avian activity, multiple charities will be taking home half the pot! And those post are likely to increase as word of the Chicken S#!T spreads!

Mark Kelpe, one of the managing partners of Culinary Virtue Restaurant Collective, which owns the two Char Bars, two Meat Mitch’s, and Beer Kitchen, says they were looking for something different to celebrate Char Bar’s ten-year anniversary in Westport utilizing the restaurant’s large outdoor beer garden. Whiskey Tango Friday’s were born. There’s a live DJ, country western music, lots of great southern-inspired barbecue, and thanks to Kelpe’s friend, Nicole Cawlfield, a “chicken wrangler” and rare chicken breeder, there is Chicken S#!T Bingo. “She built this giant chicken cage that has 49 squares, and for five bucks you can bet on which square the bird will “do its business.” You keep half the money. The charity of the week gets the other half. There are five to six games on any Friday, and you never know how long the game is going to last-maybe a minute, maybe 40-minutes. “Our first game on our first Friday night lasted exactly a minute, and the winning number was number one,” Kelpe laughed. Each game yields a pot of some $260, and on that first night, some of the winners even donated their share to the charity. It all added up to some $700 for Missouri German Shephard Rescue!

I’ll get back to how you can get involved beyond just eating, drinking, and betting at Char Bar Westport on Friday nights in a minute. First, some thoughts on Kelpe’s friend, and chicken wrangler, Nicole Cawlfield. “Anyone who has chickens is technically a chicken wrangler-one who can handle chickens and has developed a trust with them to do so,” Cawlfield clarified. “My job as a chicken wrangler for the Chicken S#!T Bingo is to transport them to the site from my home and put them in the bingo board cage that I built after the tickets have been purchased. It’s also my job to watch for the winning poop, and then retrieve them when the winner has been determined, and, of course, cleanup said poop. Cawlfield says she got the idea from a birthday road trip with some girlfriends to Austin, Texas. “One of the best things we did there was attend a Chicken S#!t Bingo game and happy hour. It was so much fun. I even won one of the rounds. I’ve had chickens for almost a decade now and thought it would be a really fun thing to do here in KC, as no one else is really doing it here,” Cawlfield shared.

Now, back to the charity element. Along with Missouri German Shephard Rescue, other charities in cue for the fundraisers are: Harvesters, Save, Inc., Big Brothers, Big Sisters, and KCPAWS.org. There’s also space for more, which is the real motivation behind this article. So, if you’re affiliated with a charity, or know of a great charity that could use a financial boost, send an email to charbarbbq.com.

And there you have it. My first, and very likely, my only article on Chicken S#!T Bingo. My university professors would be so proud!