Bringing the cuisine of the Big Easy to the Kansas City metro just hasn't been that easy, particularly in the Kansas suburbs where the Eddy family's Big Easy Cafe failed several years ago, followed by Copeland's and the short-lived Boudreaux's Louisiana Seafood & Steaks in Leawood. Last weekend, another Leawood restaurant serving New Orleans-influenced dishes closed its doors: restaurateur Jen Coniglio's Cafe Roux at 11554 Ash in the Park Place Center.
Fat City wasn't able to reach Coniglio for comment, but a spokesperson for Park Place confirmed that the restaurant is now closed. "That's all the information we have at this time," she told us.
Any thoughts on why so few local restaurants — Jazz seems to be the exception — serving the spicy cuisine of Louisiana seem to be able to succeed in the metro? Add your two cents in the Comment section.
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Cafe Roux: mediocre food, but at least it was overpriced & served by dimwits. No surprise to see them slip into the darkness.
I had planned to go to Cafe Roux but the reviews on Yelp deterred me. I love Cajun food and I'm a stickler so I didn't want to be disappointed. Jazz was good years ago but the last few times I was there I was disappointed. The Boudreaux's in Leawood didn't hold a candle to the one in St Joe which explains the failure there. The one in St Joe is worth the bloody awful drive. I'm with Greg above - it's past time for KC to get a GOOD Cajun restaurant.
It's Ki-Ki's Bon-Ton that rocked my world on Westport Rd, and Boudreaux's was a close second (and they still exist in St Joe I believe). The rest fail miserably-and Cafe Roux, which claimed to be "Cajun-ish" was at the bottom of my list.
I had the pleasure of dining at Copelands in New Orleans, and loved it.
The Jazz is great, just a wee bit salty for my tastes, but I tough it out. I love their food and atmosphere.
I never was able to try Cafe Roux, but a few of the comments on here again tells me I didnt miss much.
Copeland's was the closest, but neither Boudreauxs nor Cafe Roux's food was anything like what you get in New Orleans. It's a shame to conclude that KC doesn't like cajun food, we just don't like BAD cajun food.
Bought two groupons to there and used them in the same week. In my experience the food was about 50-60% more expensive than the Jazz and nowhere near as good. I usually discover neat new restaurants with groupons but this is one place I hadn't planned on returning to.
This is out of my neighborhood, but we tried it on a Groupon hoping to find something a little more upscale than jazz. The meal was pretty forgettable... I don't think I even really ate mine. So, no.
My 2 cents on that particular location was that the service and the quality of the food degraded quickly. We went there several times, and the last few were just reminders of why we should never go back. So we didn't.
Too many other good choices in the area, dammit. I'd much rather eat at any number of other restaurants in that vicinity (Trezo Vino, Sushi House, Bristol) before I'd go back to Cafe Roux. They killed themselves, IMO.
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