After downtown Kansas City's once-vibrant restaurant scene fizzled in the 1960s, and before first-rate dining venues opened in the Johnson County suburbs — the archaic liquor-by-the-drink laws in Kansas stifled restaurant growth until the 1980s — the Country Club Plaza was the best place to get a great, distinctive meal in the metro.
The Spanish-style buildings on the north side of Brush Creek were irresistible to restaurateurs. Joe Gilbert and Paul Robinson opened the neighborhood's first upscale steakhouse, Plaza III, in 1963. It's the oldest restaurant still operating on the Plaza, having outlasted Gilbert and Robinson's Annie's Santa Fe, the Bristol Café & Bar and Fedora Café & Bar. It also outlived the original 1972 location of Gilbert and Robinson's casual-dining flagship, the sexy saloon and dining room called Houlihan's, named for the men's clothing store that once occupied the space.
True, Gilbert-Robinson evolved into a national dining chain, owned by corporations outside Kansas City, even as it continued to dominate the Plaza's culinary scene. But there was still a strong presence by independent operators: Don Pepe, La Mediterranée, Harry Starker's, House of Toy, the Alameda Roof and the Colony Steakhouse, to name a few. The Plaza felt like a neighborhood with Kansas City restaurants. No more.
Today, only 16 of the Plaza's 39 culinary operations are locally owned. Most of the food chains in the 15-block shopping district are the same places found in shopping malls around the United States. They're popular restaurants and probably terrific tenants, but they've made the historic Country Club Plaza — the first suburban retail center in the nation designed for shoppers who arrived in cars rather than on public transportation — an Anywhere, U.S.A., meal rather than a Kansas City experience.
Don't get us wrong. We really like some of the Plaza's chain restaurants. (Brio Tuscan Grille comes to mind.) But we wonder what the Plaza would look like if its landlord, North Carolina-based Highwoods Properties, called a moratorium on corporate chain restaurants and leased space only to local, independently owned restaurants.
So take a stroll with us through a re-imagined Country Club Plaza. On the map, we've kept the locally owned restaurants but replaced franchise operations with new tenants: some metro favorites we think belong on the Plaza.
Brio Tuscan Grille (500 Nichols Road) becomes a new Jasper's Ristorante, the upscale Italian trattoria operated by the Mirabile family for 57 years. The sprawling dining room gives chef Jasper Mirabile Jr. a lot more room to create his tableside mozzarella cheese. Or, better yet, return all of the dishes that were once prepared tableside at the original Jasper's: Caesar salad, steak Diane, cherries jubilee.
Buca di Beppo (310 West 47th Street), an imitation old-school Sicilian restaurant, becomes a real old-school Sicilian dining spot when downtown fixture Anthony's on Grand moves in.
California Pizza Kitchen (4743 Pennsylvania) is located in the space occupied for more than two decades by the original Houlihan's Old Place. We hereby return Houlihan's, now with satellites throughout the metro, to its former home but insist that all the classic 1970s dishes come back, too, including escargot, omelets and "crepe Alaska."
The Capital Grille (4740 Jefferson) is an elegant steakhouse, but many Kansas City residents have never gotten over losing the original Bristol (and its gorgeous dome), dismissed in 1995 to make way for a vulgar, gaudy seafood shack called Jules. (It promptly failed, making way for Capital Grille.) We bring the Bristol — stained-glass dome, drop biscuits and all — back to Jefferson Street from its Leawood location.
The Cheesecake Factory (4701 Wyandotte) is in the space once occupied by a department store. Because the décor of the two-story dining venue is already wildly dramatic, why not give it an exotic menu, too? Enter La Bodega, with its collection of Spanish and Moroccan dishes.
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I agree. Bring 'em all back. This chain takeover is very disturbing. I understand that "out of towner's" need to have something familiar to go to, but the Plaza is a very unique area in this country and it needs its own identity restaurant-wise again. Feruzza's got it right with the places he mentioned. If Highwood's kicks Winstead's out next, it's over.
Great article. I wish it would happen. I also wish the Plaza was locally owned again.
Also bring back Putches 24 hour Coffee Shop /Restaurant, Putches 210 Restaurant, The Cake Box.
No, the Bristol was not the first really upscale restaruant on the Plaza. Putch's 210 would take that spot. Strolling violinists, crepes suzette...What a place. Jud Putch on the premises nightly going from table to table. First class.
I really enjoyed the article. Brought back alot of memories, especially about the Bristol. The Bristol was really the 1st upscale resturant on the Plaza. I remember how much hype it recieved before it opened. In fact, I met (one) of my wives there. She was the dining room supervisor. One great place that you omitted was Nabils. I ate there several times a week for yrs. In fcat, George Brett used to bartend there. I guess for a lark.
Oh yes! This would add so much vitality and joie de vivre to our Plaza ... hope the powers that be are reading you! Linda Rostenberg
Thanks for this fun article! It was great to imagine "what if..." And I learned a few things about Plaza history as well. You are the main reason I pick up the Pitch, Charles.
Oh gosh, Dillo, wouldn't a Pangea on the Plaza be great! Calling Martin and Wendy Rudderforth, wherever they are! Where would you put it?
John Watkins Drugstore was on the corner where Function Junction used to be, I think. That would put it just south of Tiffany & Co. It had a soda fountain, and some people loved the egg salad sandwiches. (It was a little before my time. I have a vague memory of the room, but I think Bennett Schneider was there in the early 1970s, back when Bennett Schneider was a bookstore.) C. Morris Watkins Drugstore lasted much longer. The Armani Emporium is there now.
you re right. the one i m referring to was actually c morris watkins. i understand from a reliable source that he and john were apparently cousins, though i don t remember john having a diner attached. i was very very young [i m now 60] 1957-60 and it was the luncheon destination of the plaza merchants. classic american diner - the kind that the movies try to replicate but rarely do. i remember the men from jack henry - always dressed alike per the season. and you are right about the tin roof, though i don't recall them calling it that on the menu - i think they called it an old fashion. great root beer floats too.
well done Chuck.
Frank: When I moverd to KC in 1984, the Watkins Drugstore was further west than Hall's. I remember it on the corner of 47th Street and Broadway, where the Armani Exchange is now. And I don't remember food, although this was the '80s. And isn't a chocolate sundae with peanuts known as a Tin Toof Sundae?
Nice to know I'm not the only one to notice the proliferation of chains. I like your choice for replacing Coal but Reverse was good there too. Some other KC Originals I like: Nara, Dog Nuvo, The Filling Station, Jack Gage, Taste, the old Delware Cafe in the River Market, Westside Local, Bluestem, Pot Pie, Copa Room, Blue Bird Cafe, Chez Elle...
Maybe replacing these same chains with the following Plaza eateries of years gone by:
Brio pam pam room [alemeda plaza hotel]
buca nabil's
calif pizza houlihans old place
capital grille Fedora's [replaced on-site Putsch's 210]
cheescake la bon buche
coal vines le mediterranee
cold stone baskin & robbins
firehouse watkins drug store
fogo putsch's 210
houstons putsch's cafeteria
kona kon tiki room [plaza inn]
m&s eddy's loaf and stein
mccormicks bristol
melting pot annie's santa fe
noodles Winsteads [as it existed]
panera La Bonne Bouchée
pfchangs house of toy
ruth chris plaza 3 [as it exisited]
scooters putsch's coffee house
starbucks putsch's coffee house
You will never have a better cheeseburger or chocolate syruped sundae with spanish peanuts than the old watkin's drugstore which was directly across from Hall's and on the same side of the street as Tiffany's.
I agree. I dig the food at Fud, but I don't typically have 2 hours to wait for it.
Well, that tells you what I know. I was a young Mom home with kids, by the time I got to visit the Longbranch it was well past its prime, but still had a decent shrimp kabob.
The Plaza Longbranch was kind of rowdy and raucous at a time when most other venues in JC Nicholsland were pretty staid (except the Granfalloon, of course). Unless I'm forgetting something. (And no, the heyday of Fedora doesn't count because most of the noisy drunks were rich playboys from Mission Hills).
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