Garden City — Any tricks for finding a nice house to rent? (Dodge City: landlord, yard)

[empires228]

Originally Posted by elkotronics

We went to the cellar here in our south Dodge rental house. It was nerve-wracking! We escaped any damage. We just endured the hail flying down. Thankfully I've got a 3-car garage in our rental so I could place the '11 Kia Soul 5-speed base in the garage and didn't need to endure massive hail damage on our car.


I'm told Kia of Dodge City didn't make it out so fortunate as many of their cars for sale out on the lot got hail damage!

I saw pictures of the hail collected at the highrise on the Dodge City Chat facebook page! Some of it was huge. I saw the damage today when I took my mom to Dodge to use our Cold Stone coupons for her B-day. We stopped at the Santa Fe Trail Tracks, bought flowers from the nursery at the mall, and tried Billy Sims BBQ, but weren't impressed. It tastes like the subpar local BBQ place in GC, though it's better than the awful overrated joint we have in downtown Hays! I saw how bad the damage was on the west side, but I didn't have the chance to drive past the Kia dealership. I haven't been on Wyatt Earp between the highway turnoff and Central for about a year.

[Baxie]

I contacted my friends in town, and they were sending me live videos. What a day! Glad everyone is okay. It could have been a whole other story, if it was a direct hit. Stay safe everyone!

[elkotronics]

I contacted my friends in town, and they were sending me live videos. What a day! Glad everyone is okay. It could have been a whole other story, if it was a direct hit. Stay safe everyone!

Yes, it could have been much worse. I plan on heading over to Frontier Kia and the area hit by the tornado later today to survey the damage some more. All in all, we came out all right, though some people were affected here in Dodge. And there could even be more tornado's later, the season is still "on" for them.

[High Plains Guy]

Yesterday when i got home from work, I could see the storm cell off to my east, just hovering above Dodge. It was big, well defined, and ominous. Quite impressive, actually, if it weren't for the fact that it was causing damage while I was admiring its beauty.

[empires228]

It's FINALLY raining here. I took some snazzy shots around the area the last few days that I will upload tomorrow. Happy Memorial Day, everyone!

[Mattks]

Originally Posted by empires228

I saw pictures of the hail collected at the highrise on the Dodge City Chat facebook page! Some of it was huge. I saw the damage today when I took my mom to Dodge to use our Cold Stone coupons for her B-day. We stopped at the Santa Fe Trail Tracks, bought flowers from the nursery at the mall, and tried Billy Sims BBQ, but weren't impressed. It tastes like the subpar local BBQ place in GC, though it's better than the awful overrated joint we have in downtown Hays! I saw how bad the damage was on the west side, but I didn't have the chance to drive past the Kia dealership. I haven't been on Wyatt Earp between the highway turnoff and Central for about a year.

Which BBQ place in Hays would that be? The worst restaurant I ever ate at was in Hays. On the other hand, Thirstys was quite good in my opinion, we would eat there frequently. Actually, Hays has a lot of pretty good restaurants for a town so isolated and not very big. It's closed now, but we always loved the Gambinos in Victoria, I know it's a chain and there is one in Hays too, but I'm not sure why, but it was really great. We have Gambinos in the small towns around Topeka and they are okay, but nothing too special.

[empires228]

Originally Posted by Mattks

Which BBQ place in Hays would that be? The worst restaurant I ever ate at was in Hays. On the other hand, Thirstys was quite good in my opinion, we would eat there frequently. Actually, Hays has a lot of pretty good restaurants for a town so isolated and not very big. It's closed now, but we always loved the Gambinos in Victoria, I know it's a chain and there is one in Hays too, but I'm not sure why, but it was really great. We have Gambinos in the small towns around Topeka and they are okay, but nothing too special.

TK's Smokehaus downtown. I've tried almost everything there and the only compliments I can give is that it's clean, the decor was nice, and that the service was good. The food, like most attempts at serving food in Hays, is just bland on the same level that Taco Shop, Chinese Food Express, and about half of the items at Gella's are. I'll take the BBQ place over Gella's though. Most people I know who claim to "like" Gella's only go there to grab a beer and don't actually eat the food. Rooftops was good, but it was in a strange location, it was too expensive for the local crowd, and the service was rude and horrible. Thirsty's is a favorite of mine and so are Gutch's and Cancun despite Cancun and Thirsty's bombing a health inspection pretty badly in the not so recent past. Jalisco's at the Centennial Mall is OK, but it really depends on the day and what you order. Their Hays location is much cleaner and does better business than the Dodge City location where they actually have to compete with quality local restaurants. We also had a pretty good steakhouse called Professors, but they weren't paying their state taxes so... The New Sushi and Steakhouse place on Vine in Hays isn't half bad and I'll definitely go back. Al's is decent, but the prices don't match the portions so it's a rare visit.

I just grew up on better quality local restaurants in Garden/Dodge City that even Liberal can't match let alone Hays. I know where to go to get something local I like in Manhattan, Topeka, Lawrence, Wichita, Hutchinson, Salina, Garden City, Dodge City, Great Bend, Pittsburg, Emporia, Overland Park, Junction City, and even Wilson, but there just isn't anything that stands out to me in Hays because despite always having German this and that thrown in our face as the town's culture, we don't even have a restaurant that serves decent German food for pete's sake. It's not like Garden City, Liberal, Dodge City, Emporia, and Liberal where you can find good ethnic food all over the place,Topeka Lawrence and Manhattan where you can visit a brewery of a substantially higher quality than Gella's, Pittsburg where there are phenomenal chicken restaurants, or Kansas City where you can find good BBQ all over both states in the metro. Even Liberal has the Pancake House as its lone standout restaurant.

[Mattks]

I've never eaten at TKs, my terrible experience was at Professors Steakhouse. The Sushi place in the old car repair place is cool and they have good Sushi as well. Taco Shop is okay, nothing special. I actually met an old owner of it this last winter at my restaurant in Topeka. He's now a police chaplain or something, maybe highway patrol. There's that Vietnamese sandwich shop near DQ, not sure the street, that is really good, but the portions are small. I like the chicken places in Hays. JDs was better then Als imo. I think there are a few new restaurants I haven't been to. I like China Express on Main and China Garden, not such a fan of Imperial Express. Oh, I really liked Napolis that closed, but their signage was terrible.

I haven't been to the SW part of Kansas much, but Manhattan, Topeka, Lawrence, KC metro all have many good local restaurants. Junction City has some great Korean Restaurants, we love going to Four Seasons there. Topeka doesn't have a single real Korean restaurant, which is incredibly disappointing.

[elkotronics]

High Plains Guy - are you happy with the house you guys got to rent in Garden City? Is it affordable?

[High Plains Guy]

Yes, the house I'm renting is fantastic for the price. We pay $700 a month, and it's a 4/1 with a full basement (half finished) and a huge back yard. It's in a nice neighborhood, walking distance to Talley Trail, and my neighbors are all very nice. I'm basically off of 4th Street, north of Kansas. But I have to point out, I was lucky to get this place... it just so happened that my new boss had a house for rent, and the tenants had just moved out right before I moved here. So it was a right place right time kind of scenario.

I've looked around though, driven through various neighborhoods, and see some really nice houses for rent. I'm only on a 6 month lease so that I can keep looking and find something else, so that my boss isn't my landlord, lol. Plus, she wants to sell, anyway.

I'm even considering buying a house here, which I will assess after having been here for a minimum of 12 months. So far, I'm in love with Garden City, and west Kansas in general.