There will soon be some new biscuits and gravy in town, Northlanders. The Big Biscuit is busy remodeling the former Chubby's space at 6332 N.W. Barry Road in the hopes of opening by the end of the month. Eggs and pancakes headline the breakfast menu, while burgers, soups and salads fill out the lunch offerings.
Celina Tio's Collection will offer a special $5 First Friday menu at Collection tomorrow.
Ignore the bright-yellow Kansas City Cafe sign still hanging on the side of the red-brick building at 1532 Grand.
"That was supposed to come down yesterday," says restaurateur Celina Tio with a sigh. "I may get on the ladder and take it down myself."
Kansas City Cafe is now officially gone. Tio purchased the two-story building and has been serving her own lunch menu for weeks. But this is the true opening weekend for Collection, her newest project since opening her Brookside boite, Julian, in 2009. The gloomy weather - rain and snow, notorious for keeping even the most loyal restaurant patrons at home - isn't ruining Tio's upbeat mood. Collection is finally open for business.
Potbelly Sandwich Shop has picked a second Kansas City area location. The franchise, which is like Google Fiber for Chicagoans, has received approval from the city of Overland Park to build a 2,134-square-foot restaurant at 6751 College Boulevard (near the southwest corner of College and Glenwood). A drive-through was not included in the site plan submitted to the Planning Commission.
The first area location is expected to open this spring at 4725 Broadway across from the Apple Store on the Country Club Plaza. Potbelly has yet to file a building permit for the site in Overland Park. As soon as I have a timetable or when they break ground, I'll update you.
Those craving barbecue for lunch have a new option in Kansas City SmokeShack BBQ. Glenn Yeager and his son Josh opened their new joint earlier this month at 900 Swift in North Kansas City. The Yeagers are using a family recipe for their rub, one they say dates back to Glenn's great-great-grandfather's days herding cattle in Sedalia, more than 150 years ago.
Robert Krause will soon have a hot buttered biscuit for you.
Chef and restaurateur Robert Krause, the Lawrence entrepreneur best-known for the namesake bistro he once operated out of his home and two more conventional restaurants (the wildly popular Burger Stand at the Casbah, and the short-lived Esquina on Massachusetts Street), operates like a Broadway producer. He likes assembling the details of a new project - the concept, the staging, the cast and the crew. But once the show - or, in his case, the restaurant - is up and running, he's ready to move on to a new project.
Since selling Esquina last year (it's now chef Jim Vaughn's Intorno restaurant), Krause has been plotting his next move: an old-school comfort-food venue that will serve breakfast, lunch and dinner. He's negotiating to buy a building on Massachusetts Street, and when the deal is complete, he and WheatFields Bakery co-founder Charles Rascoll plan to serve comfort food at a venue called Larry's Kitchen.
Elements is set to open to take advantage of the elements.
A bar that doesn't demand commitment reopens Friday. Elements, the seasonal outdoor bar and patio located at 14th Street and Walnut (near the base of the H&R Bloch Building) in the Power & Light District is back for its third season Friday, May 3. Elements has a solid Friday happy hour with $3 beers, well cocktails and house wines between 4 and 7 p.m. It's a spot defined by the music that's playing, and a good place to remember if you'd rather have a drink than play with your phone while waiting to meet someone. For those who can't wait until Friday, the Bacchus Foundation is holding a pre-grand-opening party on Thursday night from 5 to 8 p.m. with $3 domestic beers and $7 specialty drinks with $4 refills.
The Magical Meatball Tour has stopped rolling. One of the city's first food trucks, funded by a Kickstarter campaign and a series of bakesale-esque meatball events, will not be returning to the Kansas City streets this season.
"After two seasons, we have decided to close the Magical Meatball Tour," says co-owner Venus Van Horn, who ran the truck with Ceasar Reyes. "It was an amazing experience, and we are proud to have been a small part of the new generation of food trucks in Kansas City."
Cafe Cedar's owner Jehad Selah says he's keeping the shish kebabs - and fried chicken - on his new menu.
Eleven days ago, Cafe Cedar owner Jehad Selah sent out a tweet to his followers: "Hello everyone, great news, great news, great news, great news. We are so excited about our move...."
There really is "great news," Selah tells Fast Pitch, but he's not ready to talk about it - yet. Selah did close the venue at 2 East Second Street in Parkville on April 13 (the restaurant's phone number is no longer in service), and not because business was slow. "Our business was very good, right up to the last day," Selah says. "But I was very unhappy with that location." Selah had combined two culinary concepts at his former digs: Patrons could order either classic Middle Eastern cuisine or all-American fried-chicken dinners. But after eight years in that space, Selah was ready for a change. A big change.
Another deli has gone to that great big meat slicer in the sky. Slice Deli & Bistro at 12560 Quivira, in Overland Park, has closed. Tucked in by the University of Kansas Edwards Campus, the four-year-old Slice offered breakfast, lunch and dinner and a Reuben - Randy's Reuben - that was on my to-eat list.
A love letter to tea is being written at 8025 State Line. T Loft, a new tea and juice bar, opened earlier this month. And co-owner Jill Minton is eager to share what she has learned from remaking her diet, after being diagnosed with celiac disease, along with her father, sister and daughter.
"We couldn't eat 70 percent of what we had been eating, and we were miserable," Minton says of her gluten intolerance. "I kept going back to juicing and tea and how much better it made us feel. There was nothing out there, and I thought it's time for a space like this."
Which out-of-town restaurant would you lobby to bring to KC?
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