A restaurant with spectacular city views, another with wildly entertaining owners, a one-of-a-kind disco/eats joint, a cheese and wine place run by monks, a national developer’s flagship restaurant enhancing the Plaza’s elegance—Kansas City had them all. These were the beloved restaurant jewels that have gone away but left their marks in the memories of people who enjoyed a special night out in Kansas City back in the day. Let’s take a look at the ten iconic restaurants we’ll never forget.
1. Baby Doe’s Matchless Mine
Baby Doe’s Matchless Mine wasn’t around a long time—six years, to be exact—before it very literally went downhill due to foundation issues.
And yet, the restaurant and bar still lives in the hearts of many Kansas Citians.
To say its character was distinctive would be an understatement. The massive restaurant opened in 1980 and resembled an old timey silver mine, meant to only look shaky and tattered on the outside. Unfortunately, the building’s foundation wasn’t too far off from its facade, an overlooked error that eventually led to its demise.
Baby Doe’s awe-inspiring location made it hard to ignore. It was mounted on a peak in Cambridge Circle, and folks could see the restaurant’s weathered exterior, built of lumber from old farmhouses, from both the I-70 and I-35 highways.
Chef Pete Hodes remembers its grandeur well. He helped open the KC location, helming the kitchen for two years before opening more locations in Denver and Atlanta.
“It was a two-way street leading up there, kind of like you would drive up a mountain if you were in Colorado,” Hodes says. “At its very peak, you were elevated enough to see where the Missouri and Kansas rivers connect, along with the downtown cityscape. Once we put Christmas lights on it, our sales went up 30 percent because people were wondering what that beacon in the sky was.”
The large ramshackled restaurant was inspired by the story of Elizabeth “Baby Doe” Tabor.
According to the Star, Tabor’s husband, the so-called “Silver King” Horace Tabor, was a senator who became one of the wealthiest men in Colorado. One of his silver mines, in Leadville, Colorado, was called the Matchless Mine.
Baby Doe rose to fame alongside her husband as a socialite, but the wealthy couple lost their riches when the price of silver dropped during the Panic of 1893, a four-year economic depression.
As the tale goes, Horace’s deathbed plea to his wife was to keep the Matchless Mine, as he believed it would regain its value one day and be successful. So Baby Doe lived in a shack near the mine until her death.
The Matchless Mine restaurant had chicken and donkeys out front to sell the “Colorado 19th century mine” aesthetic until the health department made the owners get rid of them.
Hodes recalls the restaurant’s 10 dining rooms, which seated around 50 people each. To get to the underground bar, customers would travel down a tunnel into the restaurant’s basement, where saloon-dressed hostesses would greet you. It had a speakeasy feeling to it, which was fitting considering customers would travel across state lines to visit the restaurant and avoid Kansas’ strict liquor laws.
“It got pretty rowdy down there,” Hodes laughs.
The restaurant had a steakhouse menu full of prime rib and an appealing happy hour that included free shrimp on Fridays. It was a full house during Hodes’ time. According to Hodes, the KC location took about six years to build, partly because the owner, whom he describes as “a character” and “fanatical,” fired multiple construction crews throughout the restaurant’s upbringing.
Ultimately, the building was built on shale and not properly secured. The shale rock shifted, and the place had to be abandoned. Yet even in just the six years that the restaurant was open, it made an impact on KC’s restaurant scene and is still remembered today. –TS
2. Fanny’s Disco Restaurant
Diving into the history behind Fanny’s Disco Restaurant yields more articles and accolades about its owner, Victor Fontana, than it does about the actual restaurant. Fontana was a larger-than-life restaurateur and night club owner in KC whose businesses and gusto personality have created a legacy beyond his death in 2012.
Fontana was a memorable character. But out of all his clubs and restaurants, Fanny’s was the most unforgettable.
Today, the term “disco restaurant” may raise some eyebrows, but back in the ’70s, when Fanny’s opened, the two concepts went together like Coca-Cola and Chevrolet. Fanny’s was a restaurant, lounge and nightclub and, yes, all aspects operated at the same time. It opened in 1976 in KC’s Westport district, right in time for the disco boom. In an article written about Fanny’s by the late Kansas City food writer Charles Ferruzza for The Pitch, he referred to Fanny’s as “glittering”.
The article’s interviewee, Ned, who visited the late restaurant, described it as “an exclusive scene where diners dressed up and the service was very formal, with rolling carts where the waiters prepared Caesar salads tableside and flambé dishes. And the dining room was surrounded by these thick glass walls that looked out on a dance floor. This was during the very apex of disco, so it was definitely the place to be.”
The restaurant served upscale Italian. Not surprisingly, Fontana was Italian himself. Michael Garozzo, another local celebrity restaurateur, was even a waiter there for a stint.
Fanny’s was one of those pivotal establishments for Westport, making the downtown block known as an entertainment district. To say Fanny’s was a hotspot of Kansas City at the time would be an understatement. On weekends, there were lines out the door to get in, and while the dance floor and food were both celebrated, much of Fanny’s success was no doubt due to Fontana’s charismatic reputation.
Ferruzza described Fontana as KC’s first celebrity restaurateur. Craig Glazer, a late local comedy club owner, recalled in an article for KC Confidential, a local news reporting website by Hearne Christopher, that there was a time when Fontana made a “Hollywood entrance” by pulling up to Fanny’s in a flashy car “dressed to the nines.”
Thanks to Fontana, many consider KC’s club scene in the ’70s and ’80s to have been just as prominent to ones you’d find in any other large city.
In Ferruzza’s 2003 Pitch article, Fontana says: “It all started at Fanny’s. The world started there, I think.”
By that interview, Fontana had just opened Frankie’s on the Plaza. Fontana continued on to say that while diners don’t really dance at restaurants anymore, he was trying to keep the good times rolling with Frankie’s. It offered a dance floor, and Fontana was experimenting with how to get people on it.
Fontana passed in 2012, a local legend who left an unforgettable impact on Kansas City’s restaurant and hospitality scene. –TS
3. Fedora’s Café and Bar
(opened in same location as Putsch’s after that restaurant closed)
Fedora’s Café and Bar is another one of those long-lost yet beloved late Kansas City restaurants from the renowned Gilbert/Robinson group. It was, of course, a staple on the Plaza for decades, with its heyday taking place during the Reagan years. It sat within walking distance from Plaza III, Houlihan’s, Annie’s Sante Fe, Bristol and Fred P. Ott’s—all also under the Gilbert/Robinson umbrella. But according to an article written by food writer Charles Ferruzza, Fedora’s Café and Bar was “the liveliest of the lot.”
“Its bar [was] packed every night with Kansas City’s young, beautiful movers and shakers, swilling martinis and goblets of wine as they giggled, cruised and connected,” Ferruzza wrote in his 2001 article for The Pitch.
Fedora’s opened in the early ’80s as a French-inspired bistro, serving a modern American and French menu. The restaurant was decked out with large brass doors and a beautifully tiled bar that hosted more than its fair share of celebratory and joyful evenings.
Like many Gilbert/Robinson restaurants, the hip French bistro went on to become a chain.
Eventually, a location opened in St. Louis’ Union Station and became the first restaurant there to serve haute gourmet American cooking. It was revolutionary for its time, offering dishes like duck served rare and drizzled with a ginger sauce.
“It soon became clear that Fedora’s represented serious food,” Anne Pollack wrote in a 2016 article in St. Louis Magazine. Ferruzza even went so far as to call Fedora’s “the Nicole Kidman of its time, sexy and vibrant, the ‘it’ place to be.”
While the Plaza restaurant closed in the early 2000s after being bought by the Haddad Restaurant Group, Fedora’s Cafe and Bistro is another lauded and late treasure of the Gilbert/Robinson group. –TS
4. Plaza III
4749 Pennsylvania Ave., KCMO (now True Food Kitchen)
“My dad’s vision was to have KC be a restaurant city like Chicago,” says Karen Byrom, daughter of the late restaurateur Paul Robinson. Having grown up in her dad’s restaurants, Byrom knows the restaurant business well. Robinson was a partner in the Gilbert/Robinson restaurant group. Alongside brothers Joe and Bill Gilbert, the three created what can only be described as a restaurant group empire. It birthed some of KC’s most recognizable restaurants, including Houlihan’s, Bristol, J. Gilbert’s and more. But Plaza III was “their baby,” according to Byrom.
The fine dining steakhouse was the restaurant that paved the way for Gilbert/Robinson and changed the food scene in KC forever.
Plaza III opened in 1963. As Byrom recalls, dining out in in the early ’60s had yet to catch up to the more upscale practices happening in Europe, especially in the fine dining realm. Presentation, atmosphere and service were elements that weren’t yet expected in U.S. restaurants. That is, until Byrom’s father began traveling.
Before Gilbert/Robinson, Byrom’s father was the general manager of Kansas City steakhouse the Golden Ox. As the tale goes, Robinson and Joe Gilbert struck up a conversation, and the rest is history. But Byrom remembers her father as the “ideas man” between the two. Robinson frequently traveled to Europe, especially London, and with each trip, he brought back inspiration from his fine dining experiences. The Golden Ox was a great steakhouse, but the Plaza III had white tablecloths and table-side service, Byrom says. “I always remember him saying ‘Hot food hot, cold food cold,’” Byrom says in reference to her father’s motto on plateware. “It was the start of the concept of heating and chilling your plates.”
At Plaza III, training the staff was taken seriously. Byrom, along with her other siblings, served in her father’s restaurants. She also went on to train bussers, waitresses, hostesses and bartenders for her dad’s other restaurants while they were expanding across the country. “We were onsite for six weeks,” Byrom says. “That was a whole new concept of training the staff.”
Plaza III was the beginning of Gilbert/Robinson’s takeover of the Plaza. In 1992, the Haddad restaurant group (the same group that also owns Winstead’s) bought the restaurant and owned it until its closing in 2018. It reopened briefly in a strip mall at 122th and Metcalf but closed in 2020.
Even in today’s restaurant scene, Plaza III’s five-decade-long run is impressive, and its loss is still felt amongst Kansas Citians. “It was the place where you went on a special occasion,” says Byrom. “There’s so many choices now, but back then it was really the place to go when you had a birthday or an anniversary. Back then, Plaza III was it when it came to fine dining.”
Robinson set out to change KC’s restaurant scene. Looking back decades later, it’s certain that he achieved his goal. Plaza III and its following sister restaurants changed the trajectory of dining in Kansas City. The steakhouse gave birth to a new era of fine dining restaurants that chefs and restaurateurs have only built upon since. –TS
5. Putsch’s 210
210 W. 47th St., KCMO (now Kura Revolving Sushi Bar)
When talking about the Plaza’s reputation for stellar restaurants, it’s necessary to acknowledge Putsch’s 210. Virginia and Jud Putsch had already operated a cafeteria-style restaurant along with a cafe on the Plaza. They opened their fine dining concept, Putsch’s 210, near the cafe in 1947. Customers needed to abide by a dress code to indulge in the upscale dining experience, complete with white tablecloths and fine china. It was a unique concept at the time. The fine dining practices of Europe were only just making their way to the U.S., and Putsch’s was on top of it.
Along with working at her father’s Plaza III restaurant, Karen Byrom also worked at Putsch’s 210 for a stint in the ’60s. She recalls carrying large trays out to diners’ tables and lifting the silver dome covers to reveal their dishes.
“It was really elegant,” Byrom says. “They started really worrying about the presentation of the food. Presentation wasn’t big back in the ’60s. It was this whole new idea about food and restaurants. Suddenly, [restaurants] were focused on lighting, atmosphere and what makes people feel good when they walk in a restaurant.”
Violinists played to the dining room while diners chose their meals from a menu of traditional upscale American fare. Tableside preparation and flambéed dishes like steak diane and bananas foster were a hit.
According to an article written by Jill Silva for Flatland, a local nonprofit PBS news organization, Putsch’s 210’s success can be attributed to African-American bartender Willie Grandison and Mexican-American chef Herman Sanchez. Both Grandison and Sanchez made notable contributions that enhanced Putsch’s dining experience. They made a lasting impact.
“The name Putsch’s resonate[s] with Kansas Citians who associate the Plaza’s golden age with a time when businesses were local, the food was made from scratch and all manner of gustatory tastes were accounted for,” local author Andrea Broomfield wrote in her book Iconic Restaurants of Kansas City. Broomfield goes on to say that Putsch’s 210 “epitomized fine dining on the Plaza.”
The Putsch family sold Putsch’s 210 to Montgomery Ward, of Montgomery Ward and Company, in 1971. It closed two years later. –TS
6. Stephenson’s Old Apple Farm Restaurant
U.S. 40 Highway and Lees Summit Road, Independence
If you remember visiting Stephenson’s Old Apple Farm Restaurant, there are probably a few of its quintessential elements that stick out in your memory. For some, it was the classic red barn exterior, the homemade apple cider or the tender smoked meats and family-style sides. For all, however, it was a pinnacle of good ole’ Midwestern hospitality.
The Lee’s Summit restaurant’s roots date back to 1870, when the farm was known as Stephenson’s Fruit Market. The Stephenson family had acres of fruit orchards and sold their homegrown fruits and vegetables to folks traveling between Lee’s Summit and Independence from a little one-room stone building.
That stone building provided the base structure for Stephenson’s restaurant, opened by Les Stephenson and his brother Loyd. The restaurant underwent seven remodelings and expansions from that original stone-clad fruit market and eventually grew to fit a capacity of 350 people in its heyday.
Thaddeus Stephenson, Les’ grandson, remembers his family’s restaurant fondly, as he practically grew up in it. “It was a place where everybody was treated with the same care and quality,” says Thaddeus. “Almost like you were going home.”
Because of the restaurant’s popularity, there was always a wait, but according to Thaddeus, the customers didn’t mind. In fact, they may have even embraced it thanks to free homemade apple cider brewed right there from the family’s orchard. Near the host stand stood a massive wooden barrel lined with metal and fixed with a spicket in which customers could pull their own glasses of cider.
Thaddeus reads off one of Stephenson’s original menus and rolls off the list of hickory-smoked meats the restaurant offered (the menu doesn’t have the exact date on it, but for reference, the filet mignon was listed for $3.75). Brisket, chicken gizzards, ribs, pork chops and more were served with an array of family-style sides, including marshmallow salad, baked potatoes, green rice casserole, muffin rolls, fritters, apple butter, corn relish and zucchini souffle, to name a few.
Stephenson’s closed officially on February 12, 2007, but there’s good news for those nostalgic for the late restaurant. Thaddeus is bringing back the flavors of his family’s beloved restaurant—specifically the apple butter. The idea was inspired by a monthly supper club dinner held at Jasper’s featuring the classic dishes of Stephenson’s. The dinner was a hit, and after realizing how badly people were craving his family’s homestyle specialties, Thaddeus decided to start producing the beloved Stephenson’s apple butter. The process of getting it on the shelves in grocery stores is currently in the works, but Thaddeus says locals will be able to snag a jar “soon enough.”
He recommends using it the classic way his grandfather’s restaurant intended it: “On a good soft roll with butter.” –TS
Side dish no. 1
Antoine’s on the Boulevard
423 Southwest Blvd., KCMO (now Rhythm and Booze bar and restaurant)
This was a very lively Italian-American restaurant on the boulevard where owners Tony DiBenedetto and his wife Virginia played the fun-loving hosts, going table to table during dinner, teasing and joking with patrons. The restaurant began as a tavern in 1940 and expanded as a restaurant (with a very small kitchen) that specialized in serving mounds of shrimp delivered in a toy boat… or a toy Tonka truck… or even a little red wagon. Whatever made for patron fun was the order of the day, decorum be damned. Anyone who went there recalled the carved-out watermelon stuffed with fresh fruit, spiked with vodka or tequila or rum, with a selection of straws sticking out of it. Men got suckers, women got roses when they left. Keeping up the fun was reportedly exhausting for the couple, and the crowds of early days thinned out. They decided to close sometime in the early 1990s. –DH
Side dish no. 2
Costello’s Greenhouse Restaurant
85th St. and State Line Road, KCMO (now a FedEx/AT&T building)
Vince Costello, a 10-year linebacker for the Cleveland Browns who ended up as defensive coordinator for the Chiefs under Paul Wiggins, decided to dabble in the restaurant business at 85th and State Line in 1979 after he retired from playing (in 1968) and coaching professional football (in 1976). There was some backroom gambling going on (their liquor license was suspended in 1990 as a result), but before the Feds closed in, Costello’s was a destination restaurant for live jazz and Sunday brunch. Bar patrons could catch a moment with an NFL player, such as Chiefs Hall of Fame quarterback Len Dawson, who hung out there on occasion. The restaurant went bankrupt and closed in early 1997. –DH
Side dish no. 3
Houston’s Restaurant
This beloved upscale steak, burger and prime rib joint on the Plaza opened in 1987 and closed its doors on January 31, 2017. Their Facebook post announcing the closing read: “Despite good faith efforts on both sides, an agreement to extend our tenancy at the Plaza could not be reached with the Lessor. Details surrounding infrastructure improvements that sought to temporarily close the restaurant proved to be insurmountable.”
The post also indicated that the restaurant may come back. “We will be on the lookout for sites (in Kansas City) with unique characteristics that would suit a new restaurant.” Another Houston’s at 95th Street and Metcalf opened in 1984 and closed in 2002. Since 2009, several Houston’s locations around the U.S. have changed their names to Hillstone, which may be the reincarnation of Houston’s in Kansas City someday. There’s been no further word on the result of the owners’ search for other sites. –DH
Side dish no. 4
The Monastery Abbey and Wine Shop
6227 Brookside Plaza, KCMO (now Brookside Barrio)
Talk about a memorable restaurant experience: Guys dressed up in robes looking like monks, serving wine, cheese boards, sandwiches and chili in a velvety dark, bustling-but-intimate setting lit like you would imagine a monastery to be lit. It was an immersive, somewhat RenFest Middle Ages experience. And late at night after the liquor stores closed, The Monastery’s small wine shop was a perfect place to buy a six-pack of unusual and hard-to-find beer and wine to go, like Mönchshof beer, brewed in a Bavarian monastery beginning in 1349 A.D. The Monastery was non-threatening, spooky, irreverent and fun—a worthy and somewhat trippy destination restaurant for any visitors to the city from 1973-1985.–DH
