Kansas City Blog

​Fat City received a phone call yesterday morning from the concerned father of a young woman who had been employed at the original KC Masterpiece Restaurant & Grill at 109th and Metcalf. The woman, a recent college graduate, had apparently shown up for her shift at the 22-year-old restaurant -- once the flagship for a collection of four "upscale" barbecue eateries created by Dr. Rich Davis, founder of the barbecue sauce of the same name -- and found the door locked and this sign, right, taped to the glass. The hand-written sign reads "Temporarily closed, We look forward to serving you soon." The caller told us his daughter had not been informed of this in advance.

The phone number for the restaurant, which Davis sold several years ago, has been "temporarily disconnected."

So, how temporary is temporary? The current owner of KC Masterpiece -- which once operated the Overland Park venue, a location on the Country Club Plaza and two restaurants in St. Louis, now all closed -- is a company called Restaurant Equity Venture. A partner in the firm, Blair Hurst, told the Star's Joyce Smith that a "new prototype KC Masterpiece" would open in Blue Springs.

This is the same Blair Hurst who told The Pitch, back in 2005, he was turning the Baja 600 Mexican restaurant on the Country Club Plaza into "an eclectic American Grill."  That concept change never took place.

Baja 600, of course, is also temporarily closed and has been since late June, after a fire caused enough damage to have the Health Department order the restaurant closed. The message on the restaurant's answering machine informs callers that the restaurant will be re-opening this week. Maybe there will be jobs for all of those unemployed KC Masterpiece staffers.