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| Sheryl? Did you see this? |
Clearly, news that the Leawood location of
JP Wine Bar closed last week is taking its sweet time trickling down to customers: The note, pictured right, was taped to the entrance last night so that someone named Sheryl could find her friends, who had moved over to Sullivan's Steakhouse across the parking lot.
The JP Wine Bar downtown is still open, but the end of its Leawood branch isn't surprising to at least one former employee (he asked to remain nameless) who told me a month ago that he expected the Leawood restaurant to close soon: "It's leached all the money out of the company," he said.
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| Another empty venue in Leawood's One Nineteen Shopping Center |
He wouldn't comment on the lawsuit filed four months ago accusing JP Wine Bar owners Keith and Linda Gobel of running
"a Madoffesque Ponzi scheme." "Just wait," said the former JP employee. "It will all come out in the courtroom."
In the meantime, the chairs, tables and bar inside the Leawood storefront are just waiting for a new owner to come in and turn it into something different.
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| The blacked-out Fuddrucker's sign |
April's other restaurant casualties include a few more high-profile spots, such as the four-year-old Toby Keith's I Love This Bar & Grill in Harrah's Casino. It closed mid-month; that same week, the Austin, Texas-based
Fuddrucker's chain shuttered its only Kansas location, the 25-year-old burger joint at 87th and Metcalf. Within days, the sign had been painted over in black and the restaurant's name had been ripped off of the yellow awning.
