North Stars

The Pitch summer road trip is now an official tradition. It started a couple of years ago when we grew restless as the city heated up and everyone else went on vacation. We took a day out of our routine and hit a street — Metcalf — in what became a revealing exploration of what we thought we knew. Last year, our adventure in randomness took us to State Avenue in Kansas City, Kansas. This time, we headed north.

We ended up in a real hot spot — not because it was the most sweltering day of the year so far. North Oak Trafficway was embroiled in a bit of controversy. But more on that later.

First, the history. "People tend to think of the Northland as all new, all rich, all white, mostly suburban," says Jim Rice, the executive director of Northland Neighborhoods Inc. "But the major portion of the Northland was annexed early on, and the houses are at least 50 years old or older." As in other neighborhoods that age, he says, "the businesses of the heyday of the corridor have gone, usually to the suburbs or interstate corridors. In their place, you never get an upgrade — you always get a downgrade. Where there once was a top-line car dealership, there's now a used-car lot. Where there was a healthy mom-and-pop, now it's a payday loan or day labor or vacancies."

That's where the controversy came in. We'd chosen North Oak Trafficway for reasons that had nothing to do with the fact that the Midwest Baptist Theological Seminary wanted to sell 32 parklike acres at the corner of Vivion Road, where developers wanted tax breaks to put in a strip mall just like every other strip mall in the northern suburbs. The Kansas City Star editorial writer Yael Abouhalkah called it "one of the most questionable taxpayer-subsidized deals to advance through City Hall in 15 years." Yet it seemed to have an unusual amount of support.

"I, like everybody else, am kind of heartsick about losing green space," Rice says. "I made the judgment that the second the seminary folks made the decision to sell the property, development was inevitable. Therefore, what we should be about is getting the best development we can under those circumstances." Rice says he trusts the developers, Hunt Midwest and R.H. Johnson Company. And, he argues, the area needs help.

Maybe so. When we road-tripped on North Oak, lush green lawns were fading in the late-summer heat, giant plastic logos for big-name chain stores loomed over every hill, and new houses looked like waves of a beige ocean around Missouri Highway 152. But for every boarded-up frozen-custard stand, a flower shop's neon burned bright. There's a storefront tabernacle, a cosmetology school, a driving range and a Christian nightclub. American flags fly everywhere, and Northland Auto Sales habla Español. God bless North Oak Trafficway.

5:30 a.m. Nature's Window 6944 North Oak Trafficway

The sticker on the mailbox says ³Mr. Poopy,² but it's a boisterous 52-year-old blonde with gem-studded cat's-eye glasses who greets a morning visitor.

It's still a good half-hour before the 6 a.m. newscasts will pronounce this the hottest day of the year, but Jamie Ann Smith-Hennessy — owner of Nature's Window catering — is already sweating. Maybe that's because she meant to be here at 5 a.m. but couldn't find her glasses and didn't roll in until 5:30. Or maybe it's because she has fewer than four hours in the "office" today before she heads to Pomme de Terre Lake.

Either way, Smith-Hennessy — her black T-shirt flecked with crumbs and her pink-toed socks peeking out of her Birkenstocks — admits that her only mode of operation is full boil. "The sisters used to hang me by my suspenders in the cloakroom," she recalls of her Catholic school days. She's prone to banging on windows, dancing among the long silver tables and speaking in a word-skipping rapid fire. "I don't drink," she says. "I don't do drugs. I'm just like this."

But her manic managerial style has made this Qi-Gong-practicing woman one of the metro's most-lauded small business owners. The founder of one of the nation's top 10 caterers for corporate jets, Smith-Hennessy reluctantly pulled on a pair of pantyhose and painted on some makeup (a process that, she says, "makes me whine like a 10-year-old") to receive the Governor's Small Business Award last year.

Smith-Hennessy never dreamed that she'd make a living creating spreads that, this year, won third place in a contest hosted by NetJets, the self-proclaimed "world leader in private aviation" owned by Warren Buffett. Hell, half her staff will tell you that she hates food. In fact, if her 1965 Chevy hadn't broken down for the eighth time on September 14, 1981, this Oregon native would have blown right past Kansas City on her way to Dallas.

Instead, she got stranded, got married and settled on 160 acres off Barry Road. After the birth of her now 18-year-old daughter, Smith-Hennessy's marriage went south. She dabbled in the construction industry and built a greenhouse. Then her family doctor asked her to cater his 39th birthday party. Next thing she knew, she was bartering sugar cookies with a local lawyer to secure her articles of incorporation. She opened her one-woman bakery in 1995. Until 1998, Smith-Hennessy says, she was barely making $100 a week. Now she has 16 employees who get profit sharing and health insurance.