After nearly 40 years – and 14 restaurants across the Kansas City metro – Forbes Cross is retiring.
His Micheal Forbes Bar and Grille (128 W. 63rd St.) in Brookside, will close June 30.
Forbes Cross says he was honored to be part of the community and “deeply thankful for the loyalty and endless support of our patrons.”
His success is rooted in those relationships and the shared passion for food and fellowship, he says.
“When you work in restaurants it gets in your blood, all the interaction with people, fun with your employees and customers,” Cross says.
At 15 years old, Cross got a job washing dishes at the Homestead Country Club in Prairie Village. He worked his way up to busboy, then cook and waiter before graduating from high school.
After college, Cross worked for Godfather’s Pizza in Lawrence, and then joined the famed Gilbert/Robinson restaurant group working as general manager at restaurants in Kansas City, Chicago, New Orleans and Jacksonville, Florida.
He opened Michael Forbes with a partner in Waldo in 1985 and it became a destination location until he sold it in 1999. In 2012, he resurrected it in Brookside, just a 10 minute drive from his home.
Some of the most popular menu items are those using his mother’s recipes: Greek salad, pot roast soup and sour cream apple pie. She worked the front desk Tuesday nights at his Waldo restaurant.
His son, Matt Cross, was executive chef of the Brookside restaurant for eight years before opening Matthew’s Catering in 2020.
Forbes also had such operations as Parkway 600 on the Country Club Plaza, which later became Japengo (Pan-Asian cuisine, white tablecloths); Martini’s in Leawood’s Camelot Court, which then became Michael Forbes Soulfish Grill; Union Cafe in Union Station; Forbes Woodfire Grill in Lee’s Summit (a mostly to-go operation serving such items as burnt ends, chicken enchiladas, funnel cakes and prime rib); and Red River Cantina, a Tex-Mex operation in south Overland Park.
“When I first started there wasn’t that much competition, maybe a tenth of the restaurants in 1985,” he says. “When I first started out you couldn’t even serve liquor in Kansas, so people would come over to Missouri. And we were one of the first restaurants at 119th and Roe.”
In the next few weeks, he is planing a series of events and specials that will include bringing back a few favorites, such as the fried lemon artichoke appetizer from the original Michael Forbes and the garlic chicken pasta from Parkway 600.
Forbes did a stint as president of the Greater Kansas City Restaurant Association. He also has been a restaurant consultant for such operations as the former Nara sushi in the Crossroads, and plans to continue consulting while spending more time with his 11 grandchildren.
“It has been an incredible journey,” Forbes Cross says.
