Sexy new speakeasy Kennedy Room stirs up cocktails and history in Uptown

Someone had to do it, and it's a surprise no one did before now: open a bar called the Kennedy Room, especially now that we'll be marking the 50th anniversary of the assassination of John F. Kennedy in November of this year.

But twentysomething bar founder Pasha Heidari isn't necessarily looking to make a quick buck. "I've had some strange thing with the Kennedy family for a long time," he says.

Heidari consulted with his uncle Al Heidari, owner of the Old Warsaw. His uncle helped him realize his vision of a friendly neighborhood drink spot in an unlikely location: in a corner nook inside the Montaigne Club, a private members-only club, a.k.a. the ornate pink building across from the Crescent Court.

"I give him most of the credit for seeing the potential," Pasha says, modestly. "He asked if I had a vision for it, and I did."

Pasha took a space at the corner of the building and transformed it into an effortlessly relaxing hang with a few charming quirks — beginning with the portrait of JFK and Jackie that hangs over the bar. If you didn't know better, you'd think you'd stepped into the parlor of an Irish-Catholic home in Boston in 1962, when practically everyone had a JFK portrait hanging on the wall, right next to Pope John XXIII.

The room is a mere 350 square feet, qualifying this as one of the smallest bars in town. But it doesn't feel small. Windows in the west-facing front let sunlight stream into the room. There's a gas fireplace on one wall, topped by a mantle that holds a collection of old books.

The furniture is a motley collection of pieces, including reclaimed church pews and comfy club chairs. A big chalkboard offers news, witticisms and daily specials; a vintage issue of Look magazine — with JFK and Jackie on the cover, of course — sits on a small side table, next to a thrift-store lamp.

One of the coolest features is the top of the bar, which consists entirely of pennies that Pasha and his mates — artist James Buenrostro and bartender Joseph Buenrostro — glued to the bar top before covering with a thick layer of clear lacquer. They kept track of the number of pennies they glued but won't reveal how many. It'll be a bar game.

The bar stools were a major find. They're never-before-used vintage office chairs. Pasha had their bases lengthened so they'd be high enough for the bar.

"The concept is a neighborhood watering hole in Uptown," he says. "It's a place where I can go if I want to go get a drink and be away from the nonsense that is out there. It's a a down-to-earth bar where you can walk in, meet a new face and shake a new hand."

The Kennedy Room, which opens Friday, will have a mixology component, but given its small scale, it won't have the wall of beer taps that every other bar seems to be installing.

"We have five beers brewed around the Dallas area, plus a few others like Miller Lite," Pasha says. "Cocktails, we'll have the mixology spirit but without the crazy price."