| City Tavern goes Viennese in May |
"The restaurant won't change that much in appearance," Clothier told me this morning. "We'll take down the vintage photographs of Kansas City, of course, and they'll add a few things. But I think the restaurant will make a great complement to Lidia's and Jack Stack in the Freight House since it will offer a very different style of cuisine for Kansas City."
Clothier said that Grunauer -- set to open on May 7 -- will serve classic Viennese cuisine, including hand-made sausages, schnitzels, pastries and a selection of Austrian wines, beers and distilled fruit schnapps. "One of the mistakes I made with City Tavern," he said, "is that I served the kind of food that other restaurants in this area were also serving."
Clothier said the high point for City Tavern was its 2002 opening with the first chef, Dennis Kaniger. "We opened to great sales and great publicity, but sales started plummeting quickly. We were hot for about 15 minutes. Our last really good year was 2008. The real decline started when the Power & Light District restaurants started opening."
Some City Tavern fans thought business at the Freight House restaurant might improve when the downtown Hereford House closed in 2008, after an arsonist blew up that venerable restaurant. Not so, says Clothier. "The customer base that went to Hereford House never really came to City Tavern. We were too refined and expensive for them."
Clothier said he learned that creating a successful restaurant was "like catching lightning in a bottle."
"There's a formula to a successful restaurant and we never had that formula down until we were ready to throw in the towel. By that time, though, the magic was gone."
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It will be nice to have a new international flavor in the area. Personally I always found City Tavern overpriced for what it offered.
The dude who is running the restaurant ran a 4 star restaurant in New York for years. I think it will meet KC standards.
Not sure if the new concept will work - City Tavern was such a classy place...
The Grunauer's are all amazing cooks though. I personally raid Elisabeth Grunauer's fridge for leftovers four, sometimes five times per week. The business of food is in their blood - its what they know and do best.
I wouldn't be surprised if the decline started because they got a new chef, fired the bar staff and revamped the menu. That transition seemed like it was handled rather awkwardly.
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