A Fat City reader this morning sent us a link to a story in the Scotts Valley Patch, an online newspaper covering the Scotts Valley community in California's Santa Cruz Valley, about a chef, David Smith, who has Kansas City connections. According to the article, David Smith -- celebrating his 20th year cooking at Peachwood's steakhouse at the Inn at Pasatiempo in Santa Cruz -- was formerly a chemistry professor at UMKC and the chef-owner of a successful restaurant, the Triple Crown, "a horse-racing-themed Kansas City-style steakhouse."
Smith left the Kansas City area in 1989 after 15 years of operating the Triple Crown. I have no recollection of the restaurant, so I called chef Smith in California to ask: Where in the hell was it?
"It was in Blue Springs, off of Highway 7," Smith says. "It was open from 1975 until I left Kansas City in 1989. It was an upscale restaurant. We had cabaret shows five nights a week and we served dishes prepared tableside, like Steak Diane and Bananas Foster."
"Blue Springs? Fancy restaurant? The 1970s?" says Blue Springs Mayor Carson Ross. "I've lived in Blue Springs for 37 years, and I thought the fanciest restaurant we had, back in those years, was a Texas Tom's!"
Ross is a restaurateur himself -- his family owns the Smoky Hill Barbecue restaurant at the Lake of the Ozarks -- and says he just can't remember the Triple Crown Restaurant.
Leonard and Jasper Mirabile Jr. of Jasper's Restaurant -- which was, at its original location on 75th Street, the last local dining room to still prepare tableside dishes -- had never heard of the Triple Crown, either. "Tableside service?" Leonard Mirabile said. "In Blue Springs? I don't believe it."
Oh ye of little faith: If Fat City readers have memories of dining at chef Smith's Triple Crown Restaurant, share them with us in the comments section.
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