LAWRENCE, Kan. — Perched on a hill not far from the University of Kansas campus is a Neoclassical Craftsman-style cottage built in 1906 as a bookstore. The building is painted red and blue and has been known for 60 years as the Wagon Wheel, although no one calls it that.
The place is simply the Wheel, and its owner, a jovial 49-year-old Kansas alumnus whose full name is Robert Farha, is known around town as Knobbie. The Wheel serves $3 cans of Coors and $5 wang burgers (basically bacon cheeseburgers with a fried egg on top).