North Stars

The strategy for her award-winning business strategy is no secret. It's pinned to the pink door leading to her office: An oversized cutout in the shape of a fish reads "Choose your attitude," and fluorescent bubbles urge "Play while you work." She's the type of manager who brandishes hot-pink plastic artillery. "Better watch out," she warns. "We've all got squirt guns."

But Smith-Hennessy knows that her target customer base wears $5,000 suits. "They don't want peanut butter on saltines." Anyone can make a sandwich, she says, so she has high standards for her staff.

"If you work here, you have to do two things," she explains, wielding a tray of caramel-scented cinnamon rolls. "You have to autograph your work with excellence," she says, stopping as she struggles with a plastic lid. "And the other thing is" — her voice rises as she races out the office door to the kitchen — "you have to swear when the damn lids won't go on."

There's no lack of four-letter humor peppering the air as the crew churns out shrimp cocktail and packs up the orders. This is her family, Smith-Hennessy says, and she sees no need to censor its unrelenting banter.

Some of those $5,000 suits will make an appearance tomorrow, but the corporate crowd isn't her scene. Well-dressed execs may pay the bills, but Smith-Hennessy will be riding her bike at the lake. — Carolyn Szczepanski

10:20 a.m. I Got Your Back Chiropractic 8516 North Oak Trafficway
Seashells rest on a countertop in the lobby of I Got Your Back Chiropractic. An ocean mural, replete with lighthouse and gulls, covers a wall in the area where Michael Hudak treats his patients.

Hudak, who owns the practice, chose a nautical theme in recognition of his Matawan, New Jersey, hometown. The site of three shark attacks in 1916, Matawan belongs to a section of the Jersey shore said to have inspired Jaws.

He came to Kansas City to study at Cleveland Chiropractic College. At first, he had trouble adjusting to life in the Midwest. "It was a struggle for three years because I was way too East Coast jerk-offish," he says.

In time, Hudak, now 38, came to accept the slower pace and mysterious-tasting bagels. He opened his practice in 1999. He came up with the name I Got Your Back Chiropractic while bartering services with a painter, Alexander Austin, who is best-known for his Martin Luther King Jr. mural at Troost Avenue and Linwood Boulevard.

Austin, says the blond, bearded, shorts-clad Hudak, asked for spine adjustments in exchange for his work. Hudak agreed. "I go, 'Oh, yeah, man, I got your back. Man, I got your back for life.' Then I was, like, 'Oh, my God, that's it.' And I just freaked out and got so excited, and that's how I came up with the name."

Hudak is excited at the moment by the direction his practice has taken. Last year, he treated Chris Morant, a reserve member of the Brigade, Kansas City's Arena Football League team. Word got around, and now framed photographs of several Brigade players hang on the wall.

Hudak helps personal-injury lawyers with their cases, but no courtroom matches the thrill of working with athletes. Hudak started doing Pilates in February. He figured he needed to add strength in order to lay hands on large football players.

"It puts me in the same category, in my opinion, as they're in, as that elite," he says. "I want to stay there, and I want to keep going higher and higher."

A wrestler in high school, Hudak likes to be near structured combat. He also works with Mike Kelly, a champion kickboxer who lives in Peculiar. Hudak is Kelly's cut man.

"When he's getting ready to fight, we'll all get together and we'll practice what we're going to do. I'll work on fake cuts and stuff like that. I am a professional cut man, which is a fun little sideline. I mean, I don't make any money off of it."

Kelly, 39, keeps himself in a condition that astounds the chiropractor.

"Guess how long this guy can hold his breath for?" Hudak asks. "Four minutes and 16 seconds. He can hold his breath underwater for 4 minutes ... that's his record right now. He's going for 5 minutes by the end of the summer."

As Hudak marvels at the size of another man's lung capacity, he is expecting a crew to replace the front door to his office. Thieves broke in a few nights ago and stole a moneybag with a check from an insurance company. Hudak was able to replace the check and is thankful that the burglars didn't smash the fish tank.

— David Martin 11:30 a.m. In-A-Tub 4000 North Oak Trafficway

If you want to know how much Northlanders love their home-grown fast-food franchise, In-A-Tub, just drive by the flagship location — the building with the curved, smoked-glass windows — during the lunch shift. The parking areas surrounding the restaurant are packed with cars and trucks (mostly trucks) well before noon. Customers are already lined up at the counter ordering the kind of fast food that the McDonald's next door doesn't sell: corn dogs, chili pies, pocket burgers, taco burgers, fried corn nuggets.