It’s possible you’re one of the locals plagued with fond memories of biscuits and gravy and thick-cut slices of greasy bacon from the restaurant space at the corner of Gillis and Pacific in Columbus Park, the late Happy Gillis. Surely, you grieved its demise. It’s also possible that when you heard the notable chefs behind The Town Co.—currently one of Kansas City’s top fine dining destinations—Johnny and Helen Jo Leach, were taking over the neighborhood corner spot, you paused at the idea of a “chef-driven neighborhood restaurant.”
If this is you, dear reader, the Leaches are quite aware of your hesitancy—and, ideally, your curiosity—about their new breakfast and lunch restaurant, Dear Donna. That’s why they treaded lightly, giving their juicy scoop to Northeast News first (No, I’m not salty. Why do you ask?) as a show of love to their new community and repeatedly reassuring the public, “We have every intention of keeping this restaurant a casual neighborhood spot.”
Nearly four months into their newest venture—with a menu that lists things like meatloaf sandwiches, french fries, granola parfaits and a wine list that simply reads “Red,” “Rose,” “White” and “Sparklin’”—it’s evident the Leaches, alongside business partner Sondy Bojanic, have delivered on that promise, though not without their refined sensibilities.
Before The Town Co., Johnny worked under David Chang at Momofuku in New York while Helen Jo served as pastry chef at the acclaimed Portland restaurant Le Pigeon. So while the menu at Dear Donna reads familiar and the new interior is relaxed and charming, that meatloaf melt is sandwiched between slices of Ibis Bakery pain de mie, the granola is tossed with lavender and cardamom, and the french fries are made from cured Kennebec potatoes and served with sour cream and onion dip. Besides the Heinz ketchup alongside those fries and the Ritz crackers circling the pimento kimchi dip (the Leaches aren’t above admitting that some things have already reached their final form), everything is made from scratch.
Surprisingly, the egg sandwich, while good, is not the best thing on the current menu, though the bread is fantastically soft, especially against the crisp layer of hash browns. Order whatever drink you will—a house drip from Broadway Roasting Co. or perhaps a Worcestershire-splashed Bloody Mary—but when it comes to the food, order the Dutch baby first.
The eggy cross between a crepe and a pancake cradles fried chicken and is bathed in a hot buttered maple syrup that tastes like a profound reckoning of how all things sweet should be experienced. Paired with the custardy Dutch baby, the syrup delivers subtle notes of a luxurious crème brûlée.
The Leaches aren’t quick to delve into specifics of their processes unless I ask. Which I do when it comes to this syrup.
“It’s kind of complicated,” Johnny says. “We reduce cream until it breaks, and then the milk solids get caramelized, and then those milk solids get added to melted butter. Then there’s maple, rice vinegar. Then we emulsify it. The recipe is kind of crazy.”
With all this intention, it’s remarkable that both Johnny and Helen manage to work the 36-seat dining room while moving back and forth from the kitchen. The same is true of the rest of the staff, and Bojanic can often be found behind the bar or on the floor serving customers. The Leaches intentionally designed the restaurant to work this way. You never know who will plop your charred cabbage salad—perfectly, almost excessively coated in lemon-pepper ranch and garnished with crispy shallots—in front of you.
On one visit, when a nearby table asked for fresh pepper, a cook returned carrying a hilariously massive, fully functional grinder nearly half his size. The Leaches might have plenty to say about their North Kansas City mushroom supplier, MyCo Planet, whose oyster mushrooms appear in the rice bowl (“A mushroom risotto meets fried rice,” as Johnny describes it), but the environment is plenty playful.
As at Happy Gillis, you’ll still order at the counter, which has been pushed back to expand the dining room, making Dear Donna feel more spacious than its predecessor. Small dividing walls encourage a more natural flow near the entrance and discreetly hide the bathrooms, which are notably adorable thanks to screen-printed art and patterned wallpaper. Most of the dining room is washed in white, but the restaurant’s maroon, baby pink and dusty blue brand colors—and paintings by local artist Alex Skorija—appear throughout. Former church pews line the walls, and doilies permeate the space. Don’t worry: The historic rusty signs still hang outside.
The “Donna” in Dear Donna is Johnny’s mother. Considering the Leaches have an 11-year-old daughter, when searching for guidance on menu items or design choices, they fittingly ask themselves: What would Grandma do?
That question is most obvious in the framed doilies scattered throughout Dear Donna, but it also guides the sweeter side of the menu. Helen Jo’s desserts and pastries have long been celebrated for their innovation. She once worked at Milk Bar, the New York bakery spun off from the Momofuku empire, where she helped create what many now know as cake pops. Needless to say, dessert is mandatory.
You won’t be overwhelmed picking one. There are only three desserts on the menu right now. The almost perfectly moist almond sponge cake arrives looking pristine, topped with a thin layer of dark chocolate ganache, maraschino cherry syrup and whipped cream. When I was served the vanilla pudding—in a chalice-shaped glass, infused with brown butter and crowned with preserved strawberries and sesame cookies—I was advised to dip my fries into it. The advice was sound and, after learning that Helen Jo and her daughter often go on “french fry dates,” perhaps more intentional than I originally realized.
Currently, Dear Donna is open only for breakfast and lunch. During the Happy Gillis era, I strategically visited during off-hours and certainly never on a weekend. But a Saturday visit at noon proved far less of a headache than anticipated, and tables turned over at a comfortable pace. As a sign near the entrance reminds customers, during a rush you may be tempted to grab a table before ordering, but don’t be that jerk. (The sign says it more politely than I do.)
Dinner is coming, the Leaches say. They envision it operating like a dinner party, with invitations sent to those subscribed to the restaurant’s mailing list. Looking further ahead, the owners also purchased the garage space north of the restaurant that once housed Columbus Park Ramen. Eventually, they hope to expand the kitchen there and transform part of the space into a sundry.
Dear Donna might be “chef-driven,” but only in the way that the Leaches have created a restaurant they themselves would want to eat at. There’s a special sauce to that sort of ambition, as seen in places like Anjin in the Crossroads, Earl’s Premier in Brookside and Zero Zero Pasta in Westside. These neighborhood joints ooze intention but never in a way that feels performative. You taste it. You feel it. Yet it arrives with such ease that the work behind it nearly disappears. Sure, the savory whipped cream on the almond cake may require 20 painstaking steps and enough tinkering to keep it from melting, but that’s the point. Dear Donna succeeds because all of that effort never overshadows the simple pleasure of being there. It remains, first and foremost, the kind of neighborhood restaurant people actually want to return to. Check out Dear Donna (549 Gillis St., KCMO, deardonnakc.com); it won’t disappoint.
