The current worst-kept restaurant secret in Kansas City? The news that Richard Ng -- who co-owns and operates the six Lo Lings restaurants in the metro with his wife, Theresa -- is planning to move his Plaza location out of the Board of Trade building in 2011 and into the Skelly Building on the north side of Brush Creek.
Ng wouldn't comment on the report, other than to say that he has been negotiating for a short-term extension of his lease on the Plaza location.
Asked if he planned to stay in the Board of Trade building beyond 2011, Ng said no.
Sources close to Ng say he's been in negotiations with Block &
Company -- longtime friends of the Ng family -- for a restaurant spot
in the orange brick building at 605 West 47th Street. The Skelly Building, for years the tallest commercial building on the Country Club Plaza, boasts just one restaurant now, a Panera Bread Company.
Ng has long wanted a more visible location on the Country Club Plaza than the Board of Trade building at 4800 Main, where Ng has operated for nearly two decades; the restaurant does a thriving dim sum business on Saturdays and Sundays.
Fans of the Plaza Bo Lings are concerned about Ng moving to the busier hub of the historic shopping district. "Where will people park to run in for carry-out?" someone asked me after hearing the news that Ng wanted to relocate the restaurant.
The Board of Trade restaurant location was home, in the early 1980s, to the Buttonwood Tree restaurant and, after that, a short-lived location of the Colony Restaurant and Lobster Pot.
(Image via Flickr: tracyoutwest)
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