January can be a slower time in the restaurant industry — but it’s also the perfect moment to take a moment to reminisce and appreciate the food that shaped our city.
KCUR's Up to Date recently took a look at the best new restaurants around Kansas City. But we also strolled down memory line to talk about the Kansas City restaurants past that defined birthday dinners, date nights, family traditions and some of your fondest memories around the table.
Longtime James Beard Award–winning food critic Jill Silva and food historian Dr. Andrea Broomfield joined KCUR’s Brian Ellison to reminisce about since-closed spots, explore why the best places don’t last forever, and ask whether recent closures point to deeper challenges in the local food and restaurant industry.
Jill Silva's missed restaurants:
Corvino Supper Club: With almost a decade in business, clearly the restaurant was a great success with a very talented chef at the helm. Investors, lease terms, new career ambitions, life changes all can spur a restaurant to close even when the food is excellent. In this case, I suspect live music may have added significantly to costs of operation.
But on a more upbeat note, restaurants like Corvino, which was part of the restoration of Corrigan Station, are currently driving rehabilitation of dilapidated old historic buildings in the Crossroads, River Market, Martini Corner, 39th Street and heading east to Troost, where a number of interesting coffee shops and eateries have popped up in recent years.
The American Restaurant in Crown Center: Iconic, designed by architect William Platner and was consulted on by James Beard himself! The crown jewel of Crown Center, this restaurant put Kansas City on the national fine dining map, etiquette of a by-gone era. Fine dining as in, men must wear a jacket, tables had linen and crystal, tuxedoed waiters offering tableside preparations. The American was well-funded by the Hall family and able to not only serve fabulous dishes without the pressure of profit but also paid for the visits of many great chefs and restaurants across the United States, including Jose Andres, Jean Louis-Palladin and Rick Bayless.
The restaurant closed to the public in 2017, but continues to offer private events and pop-ups under Chef Jacob Moeller, an alum of Rye. Important chefs who led The American who have restaurants in Kansas City include Michael Smith (Extra Virgin, Farina, Extra Virgin To-Go); Celina Tio (also formerly Julian in Brookside, now owner of The Belfry Collective, including Ground Control, Wolf Den, as well as ANNX spirits); Michael Corvino (Corvino Supper Club); Andrew Longres (Acre in Parkville). A complicated six-degrees-of-Kevin-Bacon map could be drawn from all these chefs to other prominent chefs in the city!
Bluestem: This restaurant shuttered during the pandemic but an overall casualness in restaurant dining was one of the deciding factors. By the time the restaurant closed, it had set another bar to strive for and drew Kansas City into the national restaurant conversation. Meanwhile, owners Colby and Megan Garrelts had gone on to create Rye, a concept that better fit the times and their life aspirations. Chewology, by rising star chef Katie Liu-Sung, has taken the space once occupied by Bluestem.
The Rieger & Manifesto: A seminal restaurant for many years that also went out of business during the pandemic, but not before feeding industry people in need and unhoused individuals throughout downtown. Chef Howard Hanna is now working as part of a new restaurant group that includes Hank’s Garage & Grill in Shawnee, recently cited in Kansas City Magazine as top "10 Restaurants Ushering in KC’s Next Culinary Chapter.” In the basement, Ryan Maybee of J. Rieger & Co., created Manifesto, the first speakeasy-style bar and is largely responsible for helping launch our very healthy craft bartending/local spirits scene.
Justus Drugstore: Among the first farm-to-table, nose-to-tail restaurants that took local ingredients to their epitome, Justus Drugstore in Smithville was a place for painstakingly curated three-hour-or-more dinner by Chef Jonathan Justus. He foraged, made his own vinegars, and had a botanist bartender. When Justus got an offer he couldn’t refuse on the pharmacy building his family owned, he sold. He went on to do Black Dirt, but along the way the location and addition of investors threw off the independent streak that was his signature. Luckily, he’s back: Justus and his wife Camille Eckloff recently opened Parker Hollow in downtown Parkville featuring sustainable seafood with a raw bar.
Brookside Poultry: In a city that has lots of truly great fried chicken, I still dream about Chef Charles d’Ablaing’s spicy chicken sandwich and a super-relaxed atmosphere that felt like the real "Cheers." The space became Brady & Fox and had a similar welcoming aura with great pub food, although I always liked the Troost tavern location better. After the tragedy that took the life of Irish chef Shaun Brady, it eventually became a Mexican restaurant.
Krokstrom: Chef Katie MacLean ventured into Nordic cuisine, before the midtown restaurant shuttered in 2019. It illustrates lots of common reasons for restaurant closures, including a type of food that may have been ahead of its time. The location is now Black Garlic, an Ethiopian and Caribbean restaurant formerly known as Mesob.
Dr. Andrea Broomfield's missed restaurants:
“As with Jill, I think that the American Restaurant is essential because of what it illustrates about the limitations that a high-end restaurant faces in a medium-sized city," Broomfield said. “It opened in 1974, and Chef Bradley Ogden took Joe Baum’s New York Four Seasons restaurant concept and offered us a Midwestern interpretation.”
Houlihan’s Old Place and Annie’s Santa Fe on the Plaza: Gilbert-Robinson was one of the most successful and vital restaurant groups in Kansas City, and when they were at their most robust, they infused the city with a vitality and a joy for diners that was unprecedented. Both of these Plaza restaurants broke new ground by giving Kansas Citians fantastic meals without dressing up, and these were also the types of places that came into existence and thrived because of that little thing called "The Pill" — birth control.
40 Sardines, Leawood, Johnson County Hawthorn Plaza: Michael Corvino was The American’s final chef, and Corvino’s Supper Club was a wonder. The American likewise gave rise to the incredible duo, Michael Smith (Farina) and Debbie Gold (previously Red Door Woodfired Grill), who were perturbed by the dress code at The American and wanted to open a fine-dining restaurant that was less stuffy. Their decision to locate 40 Sardines in Johnson County also gets to an important topic: how bizarre Kansas liquor laws adversely hurt the fine-dining sector over the Kansas state line, and how the repeal of those laws in 1987 made restaurants like 40 Sardines possible.
Cafe Allegro, 1815 W. 39th Street in the Volker Neighborhood Steve Cole is/was an exceptional visionary who pushed the city’s culinary boundaries in new and important ways. Cole made wine more accessible and less intimidating to Kansas Citians. He also was a pioneer of farm-to-table dining and virtually made 39th Street the cool place to eat out.
Your Kansas City restaurants that you miss
KCUR put a call out on Facebook, Instagram and TikTok to hear from Kansas Citians about all the places you miss and what you miss about them. Below, find beloved spots that still live on in Kansas Citians’ collective memory. Thank you for taking a trip down memory lane with us.
- Allen’s Drive In
- Anna’s Oven
- Annie’s Santa Fe
- Antoine’s on the Boulevard
- Baby Doe’s
- Bell Street Mama’s
- Beignet’s
- Blue Koi
- Blue Moose
- Bluestem / Blue Stem
- Blanc Burgers & Bottles
- Blenders
- BOB WASABI
- Cafe Allegro
- Cafe Gratitude
- Cafe Italia
- California’s Taco Shop
- Ça Va
- Chai Shau
- Chingu
- City Tavern
- Classic Cup
- Columbus Park Ramen Shop
- Corner Restaurant
- Costello’s Greenhouse
- Corvino
- Coyote Grill
- Darryl’s Wood Fired Grill
- The Dragon Inn (Corinth Square)
- D’Bronx
- Eddy’s Loaf ’N Stein
- Eden Alley
- El Porton
- El Sombrero
- Fairway Grille
- Fedora on the Plaza
- Figlio’s
- Fiddler’s on the Square
- Fire Wok
- Forty Sardines
- Freshwater
- Fritz’s Chili
- Fuddruckers
- Genghis Khan
- Gojo’s
- Golden Ox (original location)
- Granny’s
- Green Parrot Inn
- Harry at Truman Corners
- Harry Starker's
- Hannah Bistro
- Houston’s
- Hibachi Japanese Steak House
- In‑A‑Tub (original location)
- Iliki’s
- Italian Garden
- Jen Jen’s Chinese Restaurant
- Jennie’s
- Jimmy and Mary’s
- Justus Drugstore
- Kabuki Sushi
- Kiki’s Bon Ton Maison
- Kind Foods
- Krokstrom
- La Bonne Bouchee
- La Cocina de Puerco
- LaPacita
- Le Monde’s
- Leona Yarborough’s
- Long Branch Saloon
- Lucille’s
- Macaluso’s
- Machine Shed
- Malay Cafe
- Mama Stufetti’s
- Manifesto
- Mario’s
- Marty’s
- Maxine’s
- McCoy’s
- Mesob Pikliz
- Metropolis
- Michael Forbes
- M&S Grill
- Murray’s Ice Cream
- Nichols Lunc
- Nutty Girl
- Old Spaghetti Factory
- Otto’s
- Paradise Diner
- Pirate’s Bone
- Plaza III
- Po’s Dumpling Bar
- Privee
- Prospect
- Putsch’s
- Quick BBQ
- Red Snapper
- Romanelli Grill
- Roy Ray’s
- Ruby’s
- Sahara Cafe
- Saigon 39
- S.O. Redux
- Sharp’s
- Shoney’s
- Sidney’s on Broadway
- Slaty Iguana
- Soakie’s
- Soiree
- Squawking Nachos
- Starker’s
- Stephenson’s
- Stevenson’s Old Apple Farm
- Stolen Grill
- Streetcar Named Desire
- Stroud’s (original South KC location)
- The Krave
- The Monastery
- The Peppercorn Duck Club
- The Prospect of Westport
- The Rieger
- Three Friends
- TikiCat
- Tippin's
- Torre’s Pizza
- Tomfooleries
- Villa Capri
- Waid’s
- Waldo Thai
- Westport Coffeehouse
Did we miss one? Chances are, someone out there still dreams about it. Let us know at uptodate@kcur.org
