Kansas City Food Blog

Who makes it at home anymore?

​Plenty of restaurants will be open on Thanksgiving Day this year. The holiday wasn't always a big business day for the restaurant industry; until the late 1980s, Thanksgiving was considered a holiday when most people preferred eating -- and cooking -- at home. But anyone who has ever hosted a Thanksgiving dinner for the extended family knows it can be an ordeal: roasting that bird for hours, creating all those side dishes, trying to remember which relative won't eat pumpkin pie and which one insists on mince pie. Yes, some people like to do the Martha Stewart thing and cook elaborate Thanksgiving meals in their own kitchens, but that number is dwindling: The National Restaurant Association reports that 53 percent of Americans prefer their holiday fare ready-to-go.

Over the next few days, we'll offer a number of Thanksgiving Day dining possibilities here in Fat City -- the fancy, the cheap, the nontraditional -- but you're in charge of making your own reservations. We can't do everything for you.

At Ophelia's, that pretty upscale restaurant in Independence, executive chef Marshall Roth will be serving a buffet-style meal priced at $23 for adults and $10 for children. Call 816-461-4525 for reservations.

The metro's various Ted's Montana Grills (except for the one in Zona Rosa, which closed earlier this year) will be serving a $14 meal featuring traditional roast turkey and dressing, garlic mashed potatoes, country-style green beans, squash casserole, cranberry sauce and a yeast roll. The full menu will also be available all day, from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m., for diners who prefer bison meatloaf to turkey.

 

​A committee looking to change the way the city deals with urban farms met for a second time on Wednesday night. The goal was to further define the group's mission and begin the process of reaching out to neighborhoods.

"The reason we're here is that some growers in urban areas have had onerous restrictions placed on their ability to grow and sell products. We want to determine how we can make changes that are still amenable to the larger community," said Gretchen Kunkel, who moderated the meeting and attended as a representative of the Greater Kansas City Food Policy Coalition.

The committee split into three sections for a majority of the meeting at the Ivanhoe Neighborhood Center. Topics were communication strategies, outreach to neighborhoods, and what research needs to be done to see how other cities are approaching the issue of urban agriculture. 

​A study released yesterday by the Center for Science in the Public Interest found that a medium popcorn and soda sold at the Regal Entertainment Group was the equivalent of eating three Quarter Pounders from McDonald's topped with ... wait for it... 12 pats of butter. And that's before we compulsively press the handle of the buttered topping dispenser.

Kansas City-based AMC fared slightly better in the tests, although that's mostly because of the smaller portion sizes at the chain. A Regal medium is 20 cups of popcorn (1,200 calories, 60 grams of saturated fat), while AMC's is only nine cups (590 calories and 33 grams of saturated fat). The high fat and calorie count in the popcorns is attributed to the use of coconut oil, which has a high amount of saturated fat.   

The Prime Rib Grill opened on Tuesday night

​Things didn't work out for poor Paddy O'Quigley's Pub and Grille at the corner of Walnut and 20th Street, so restaurateur Rod Anderson -- who had previously operated the two-story building as a catering facility called The Hollywood Room -- decided to open a steakhouse in the space.

The new restaurant, The Prime Rib Grill by Hereford House officially opened to the public on Tuesday night; longtime Anderson Restaurant Group manager Todd Brooks oversees the operation and Chris Jones is the executive chef.

Anderson reportedly no longer has an interest in the building one block to the west of The Prime Rib Grill -- the building that once housed the original Hereford House, which was destroyed in a fire last year. The blaze was later determined to be caused by a mysterious arsonist, and that building is apparently slated for demolition.

Anderson, who closed the Hereford House venue in Lawrence last year, has spent some dough on re-habbing the former Hollywood Room. The dark, comfortable interior evokes the old Hereford House (and includes a few pieces of artwork salvaged from the fire) although the menu boasts fewer steaks and focuses on slow-roasted prime rib, seafood, poultry and sandwiches.

The signs on the building still say it's The Hollywood Room, but new signs and an elaborate piece of art -- visible for many blocks -- are to be installed by next week, Brooks says.

The Prime Rib Grill is open 11 a.m.-9 p.m. Tuesdays through Thursdays, 11 a.m.-10 p.m. Fridays and 4-10 p.m. Saturdays.

Kozeta Kreka just wants customers to get cozy

​To her family and friends, Kozeta Kreka is simply Cozy. And that's the name Kreka -- a native of Pogradec, Albania -- gave to her new restaurant, Cozy's Cafe.
The placed opened two months ago at 6740 W. 75th Street, directly across the street from Fritz's Chili and the Petco store. Kozeta ran her own candy company before leaving Albania with her husband Albert and two children in 1997. For a few years after moving to Kansas, Kreka was a manager at the Town Topic in Mission; that's where she got the idea to open her own coffee shop. Cozy's Cafe serves espresso, cappuccino and home-style meals -- including breakfast all day -- from 6:30 a.m. to 8 p.m.

The menu has plenty of traditional diner fare -- pancakes, omelets, burgers, meatloaf dinners -- as well as dishes that Kreka says she would find on European bistro menus: a panini spread with whipped cream cheese, eggs, bleu cheese, sour cream and parsley; tortellini in a cream sauce with bits of ham; and her own homemade baklava.

On weekends, Kreka's husband and teenaged daughter Vilma help out in the restaurant, which had been a long-vacant convenience store before the Kreka family took a lease and started cleaning the place up (including building a kitchen and new bathrooms) last May. The restaurant is as neat as a pin and the prices are so inexpensive you may think you're in Albania and not Overland Park.

Wilkie and Merola ladle up the soup

​Was it nearly six months ago that Fat City reported that the the owners of Function Junction, Mary Merola and Rebecca Wilkie, were making plans -- big plans -- to greatly expand the culinary store on the third-floor of Crown Center?

It was the last Function Junction in the city after Merola closed the flagship store on the Country Club Plaza in late 2008; the city had once been home to several Function Junctions -- long before rivals like Crate & Barrel moved to town.

After the Plaza store closed, Crown Center executives encouraged Merola and Wilkie to expand into the vacant retail space (formerly occupied by a toy train store) adjacent to their shop. Since Merola had long wanted to have a demonstration area -- the best way to display and sell cooking products -- blueprints were drawn up for a full Viking commercial kitchen to be installed in the newly expanded store.

​The Well has quickly established itself on the Waldo circuit since opening this August -- and now it's hoping to attract more patrons with a host of new menu and drink offerings.

The bar and grill debuted its Sunday Brunch yesterday, which features an omelet bar among the six stations offering breakfast breads, fruit, eggs benedict, salads and desserts. For those who need it, there's also a Bloody Mary bar with enough vegetables for you to consider that your meal. 

In the future, this sign might just read, 'Please have your cell phones out'

​Fast food franchises have been testing mobile loyalty rewards and advertising programs for a few years, now. But soon, that system could know a lot more about your eating habits through radio frequency identification tag stickers on your cell phone.

A recent article in Near Field Communications World highlights pilot programs in place at McDonald's, Arby's, Qdoba, Dairy Queen and Dunkin' Donuts. Here's how the system, managed by mobile marketing company Tetherball, works:

Consumers who sign up for Tetherball's service are issued with an RFID tag that they affix to their mobile phone. The tag is activated by the customer by texting the ID number on the tag to a control centre. Then, each time they make a purchase at a participating retailer or food outlet, they are uniquely identified at either a contactless point-of-sale terminal or a dedicated kiosk so that they can gain or redeem loyalty points.

After reviewing your purchasing habits, Tetherball sends you coupons that are geographically targeted and order specific -- i.e., an offer for a free apple pie at the McDonald's next to your work.

Author Andrew Smith likes Kansas City so much, he's coming back!

​Prolific author and lecturer Andrew F. Smith, who was in town earlier this year to talk about his book Hamburger: A Global History, returns to Kansas City tomorrow to talk up his new book, Eating America: Thirty Turning Points in the Making of American Cuisine. Smith speaks at the Plaza Branch of the Kansas City Public Library Thursday, November 12 at 6:30 p.m. (reservations are encouraged), discussing several of the essays in the new book, which traces "the major moments" that shaped the way Americans eat now. (You can see a sample of Smith speaking on the subject here).

Smith's book touches on that first Thanksgiving dinner; the first real American restaurant -- New York City's Delmonico's ("Places that served food and drink prior to this," Smith tells me, "were mostly taverns"); the industrialization of American farms, the beginning of food processing in America; the distribution of food and, of course, the grocery stores: from A&P to Wal-Mart.

Smith has been writing about culinary history for three decades and has already completed a book on one of his favorite subjects: the role food played in winning the Civil War, for publication in 2011.

He's also a fan of our town. "I really like Kansas City and love eating there," he says. "Of course, when I've already done the barbecue tour, so when people offer to take me out to dinner, I'm up for anything!"

​​Here are some random newsy items from my reporter's notebook.

Farm to Market Launches Line of Breadsticks 

The Farm to Market Bread Company recently introduced a new line of Grissini Torinesi -- traditional Italian-style breadsticks. The grissini will be made by Claudio Cantore, a third-generation baker who emigrated to the United States from Italy in 1974 and served as an early mentor to Farm to Market founder Mark Friend.

"I'm really proud we can offer Claudio's Grissini," Friend says. "He's just such a master at the
traditional Italian style. I think our Kansas City bread lovers are in for a real treat."

The three varieties -- kalamata olive, sun-dried tomato, and herb, can be found at the Cosentino's in Brookside, Marsh's Sunfresh, as well as select Hen House, Price Chopper, and Hy-Vee stores. 

City Tavern's New Menu

City Tavern has launched a new fall menu that features a pasta section with a daily special, the goat cheese stuffed tortellini with sweat peas, sweet potato ravioli with duck confit, and risotto with roasted fall vegetables. One of the most interesting additions should be "Harry's Oysters," roasted oysters with brie and champagne.

In addition to the new offerings, an old standby -- chicken fried steak -- is returning to the lunch menu. There are two new desserts as well: maple creme brulee with walnut shortbread cookies and french toast bread pudding with caramel ice cream and caramel sauce.

​A committee organized to identify the key issues around urban agriculture in the Kansas City, Missouri metro area -- the result of a public forum on October 22 -- met for the first time on Monday night at the Nutter Ivanhoe Neighborhood Center in midtown.

"We want to revise the codes of Kansas City, Missouri, to be more supportive of urban farming and lay out a pathway that other municipalities can follow," said Katherine Kelly, director of the Kansas City Center for Urban Agriculture.

For a couple of hours, 37 farmers, community activists and residents sat down to discuss the realities of farming in Kansas City and what needs to change.

"While we're talking about traffic or the potential blight of farm stands, that's not a reality yet," said Brooke Salvaggio, co-owner of Bad Seed Farm (full disclosure:  I belong to the farm's Community Supported Agriculture program). "Nobody has seen the reality of a greener city and there might not be any issues with it. We are not advocating for industrialized agriculture in this city."

The meeting, led by the KCCUA and the Greater KC Food Policy Coalition, focused exclusively on the issue of produce and farming practices. A separate subcommittee will meet to address livestock on urban farms. In a freewheeling discussion, people had a variety of suggestions for how the city could promote urban agriculture.

"The problem is to define urban farming without stifling it or adding another layer of bureaucracy," said Dan Heryer, Salvaggio's husband, who co-owns Bad Seed.

Residents suggested that new neighborhood trees planted by the city could be fruit or nut trees; land could be designated for agricultural purposes similar to park land; organic practices could be mandated for urban farms; and changes to the zoning code could provide guidance for would-be farmers. 

"I'm hoping for more availability and enthusiasm for local food in Kansas City -- seeing a code that allows growers to sell and connect with potential buyers. Then local food will grow all on its own," said Rachel Hogan, who recently completed a year-long internship on a series of organic farms in Missouri and is looking to help develop community gardens in Kansas City.

​It turns out that $5 bills are like pennies in the jar, adding up to big business for the fast-food franchise Subway. A recent Business Week article discusses how Stuart Frankel, a franchisee in Florida, turned a simple idea for a weekend promotion into $3.8 billion in sales for the chain, according to the NPD Group.

The story details how Frankel used the promotion for nearly a year before it caught the eye of a larger Florida franchisee, who introduced the idea to Subway co-founder Fred DeLuca. This was 2007.

Emily Farris is crazy about casseroles, seriously

​Emily Farris, blogger and author of the cookbook Casserole Crazy: Hot Stuff for Your Oven (Penguin, 2008) hosts her first Kansas City Casserole Party next Monday, November 16 at Pryde's Old Westport. It's open to anyone who wants to compete in the casserole competition, but space is limited and the last day to register is this Friday (read the rules and regulations here).

Farris, who works part-time at Pryde's, began hosting casserole parties at her apartment in Brooklyn five years ago. The events garnered enough press -- in The New York Sun, the New York Post, the New York Times -- that Farris was able to land the cookbook deal with Penguin. Next Monday's event is the first time she's hosted one of the parties in her home town.

Former Pitch columnist Gina Kauffman, now co-host of The Walt Bodine Show, will be one of the judges for the Kansas City Casserole competition. The winner gets a gift certificate from Pryde's.

It's girly, but the portions are man-sized at Shabby Hattie's Tea Room in Parkville

​Professional seamstress and former cocktail waitress Marcia Cherrito (the niece of local entertainer Frank Cherrito) had a dream: She wanted to open her own little tea room that served baked goods, breakfast, lunches and tea.

Last week Cherrito threw open the doors to her turquoise-and-teal tea room on downtown Parkville's main drag (113 N. Main). Shabby Hattie's Tea Room and Boutique (named for Cherrito's paternal grandmother) serves breakfast from 8 to 10:30 a.m. Tuesdays through Saturdays and lunch from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Tuesdays through Sundays.

​Located across the street from Cafe des Amis French Restaurant, Shabby Hattie's serves salads and sandwiches -- including an excellent house-made chicken salad, a changing array of soups and pastries and a featured quiche every day -- in a dining room where each of the tables is cloaked with a 1940s-era vintage tablecloth and the china dates back to the 1920s. Side orders include excellent old-fashioned ham and pea salad or a dilly pasta salad.

I stopped in for lunch yesterday and was impressed by the superb quiche and a first-rate grilled cheese sandwich on hearty wheatberry bread. Cheritto bakes her own scones, muffins and cinnamon rolls each day. For more information on the menu and hours, call 816-587-1044.

​Everyone has a moment when they grab a meal from the freezer or stare at that half-eaten package of hot dogs and think -- am I really going to eat this? According to the BBC, a new study suggests that you're right to pause because processed foods could be linked to depression. 

The study involved 3,500 middle-aged civil service workers in Britain who were split into two groups according to diet. The first ate primarily whole foods (fruit, produce and fish), while the second group ate fried foods, sweets, refined grains and high-fat dairy products. Those on the first diet were 26 percent less likely to suffer from depression, while those who mainly ate processed foods were 58 percent more likely to be depressive.

Max Chao is back in the Crossroads

​Last year, Max Chao was working as general manager for the newly opened Masalas Authentic Indian Diner at 91st and Metcalf in Overland Park. Masalas had opened in the spot where Chao had, for three years, been running a casual dining restaurant called Ohana Hawaiian Grill.

But Chao says he was "downsized" by the owners of Masalas a few months ago, and started looking for new employment opportunities. When he stopped by restaurateur Casey Adams' Nara a month ago to say hello to his friend Koji Sakata, Nara's sushi chef, he was encouraged to talk to Adams about a job. Adams had recently hired former Room 39 general manager Kathi Rolfing to oversee his restaurant's operations; she had been "downsized" from Room 39's Leawood location and was looking for a a change in the Nara menu of hot Asian dishes.

Nara is just a block north of the spot at 1728 Main where Chao was the chef-owner of  Max's Noodles & More, which was razed years ago to make room for a parking garage.

Chao, who grew up working at The New Peking Chinese Restaurant, which his parents created and later sold, has added several of his Pan-Asian signature dishes to the Nara menu and creates different lunch specials every day.

Beginning with tonight's First Friday menu, Chao says, Nara is going to focus more on organic ingredients, using produce from local farmers. Chao is creating a new version of his Kimchee Trio using organic daikon and Napa cabbage.

Welcome back, Max.

Justin Kendall has the story of two former employees accused of poisoning the salsa at Mi Ranchito in Lenexa over on the Plog.

Husband-and-wife duo Arnoldo Bazan, 30, and Yini De La Torre, 19, are accused of mixing a Methomyl-based pesticide into salsa and serving it to customers at Mi Ranchito's Lenexa location.

Court documents allege that Bazan and De La Torre plotted to poison Mi Ranchito's customers, hoping to hurt the restaurant's business as well as hoping the blame would fall on the restaurant's owner.

Former Magic Pan employees will reunite Saturday at the RecordBar

​Back in the early 1980s, Tom Damico was a waiter, serving crepes at the old Magic Pan restaurant in Seville Square on the Country Club Plaza. One of his Magic Pan co-workers, Sherri Blades, later married Bob King and a few years later, Tom, Sherri and Bob all worked together -- you know how servers move around from restaurant to restaurant -- at the Hyatt Regency Hotel; Sherri was at the Terrace Restaurant, Tom was at J. Patrick's Lounge.

Flash forward to more recent times. Tom Damico owns a construction business but also plays in a band called Two Drunk Minimum with actor-musician (and former waiter) Dean Vivian and musician and former Monastary waiter Dann Searcy. Sherry Blades King also performed with the band -- until earlier this year, when her 15-year-old daughter Sierra King, a student at Park Hill South High School, was diagnosed with leukemia.

Sierra is battling the illness at Children's Mercy Hospital. To help Bob and Sherri with expenses, a group of friends and former co-workers have organized Sierrapalooza, a fund-raising event to be held this Saturday, November 7, from 4 to 8 p.m. at the RecordBar, 1020 Westport Road. Two Drunk Minimum performs with Missouri Woodland (featuring Gary Paredes and Royal Scanlon) and InLike, Youth Band. A $20 suggested donation can be given at the door.

(Image via Flickr: colonnade)

 

​Anthony Spino III, who with his brother Vito runs the family's Italian restaurant, Anthony's, at 701 Grand, has a deal for you this month: Bring twenty bucks and a packaged mix (brownies, cakes, biscuits, muffins) or board games and/or personal hygiene products to the restaurant on Wednesday, November 18 and get a dinner and wine tasting to benefit ReStart Inc., an interfaith ministry working with the homeless.

Anthony and his girlfriend Kymberli Cutler recently donated a new stove to ReStart's Youth Emergency Shelter. "They only had a refrigerator and a microwave," Spino says. "They needed something they could really use for cooking. Right after we paid to have an electrician get enough power to the stove, the kids at the shelter baked cookies for the firefighters down the street. That's why we're encouraging our patrons to bring in cake, cookie and muffin mixes, so they kids can continue to learn to bake things."

ReStart also needs the personal hygiene items (shampoo, deodorant, toothbrushes) and board games, Spino says.

For the November 18 event, he'll have two seatings, the first at 5:15 p.m. and the second at 7:30 p.m., for dinners that include a soup, a small entree and dessert as well as wine samplings. For reservations or more information, call 816-221-4088.

 

​Country crooners are the latest celebrities to take over the food industry. Slashfood looks at a series of product endorsements and restaurants slated to open this month from Nashville's finest.

The Alan Jackson Collection at Cracker Barrel includes 40 items covering his personal tastes in music, apparel, home decor and spices. It's an effort to generate new revenue from customers who are already in the store, similar to what Starbucks has done with book and music sales.

Grand Street's Monte Cristo looks like a serious sandwich.

​Grand Street Cafe launched its new breakfast menu on Monday with a number of sweet and savory options designed to lure in the Plaza corporate crowd. 

"We expect to have a strong business crowd, it's definitely going to be a big component," Chef Ian Hockenberger said when Fat City caught up with him in the dining room earlier this week.

The new menu grew out of an informal arrangement. Grand Street Cafe regularly hosts two to three breakfast parties a week; now it will be hosting breakfast on Monday to Saturday from 7 to 10 a.m. And brunch is still on from 10:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Sundays. 

Breakfast will feature staples of the traditional brunch -- Griddles (pancakes, belgian waffles, or french toast, $6) and Benedicts (three kinds, including the Tide Water with crab cakes, $10). But it will also have a few wrinkles, like the Monte Cristo (house-smoked turkey, ham and brie on brioche French toast, topped with cranberry chutney ($7), and huevos rancheros ($8). 

​Here are some random newsy items from my reporter's notebook.

Get Ready for Freddy's

Freddy's Frozen Custard is coming to Kansas City. The Wichita Eagle reports on eight possible franchise locations, with the first to open next spring near 135th and Metcalf in Overland Park. Freddy's Web site lauds the Wichita-based company's steakburgers, shoestring fries and concretes.

Health Inspector's Close Sharp's

Sharp's 63rd Street Grill was temporarily closed on Monday after the Kansas City Health Department cited the restaurant for four critical health violations, including evidence of live roach activity. The Brookside staple can reopen once the violations, which also include grease buildup on the floors and walls as well as structural damage to the kitchen, have been addressed.

​The fact that consumers are eating at home more often is spiking demand for premium cuts of steak, according to this Reuters report.

Statistics from last week's Worldwide Food Expo show that grocery stores are offering aggressive specials and high-end steaks in promotions designed to bring more customers into their stores. According to Midan Marketing, sales of premium steaks are up 15 percent in the third quarter of 2009 compared to the previous year, and overall the sales of meat and poultry are up 12 percent.

The night of the living on the Day of the Dead at Club 15-Twenty

​This is the first year that Kansas City has hosted the national convention for the Mexican Restaurant Association, a three-year-old non-profit organization whose mission is "to integrate all Mexican restaurants while promoting the vast diversity of Mexican gastronomy and culture."
Kicking off the three-day conference was an opening night party last night at Club 15-Twenty, celebrating El Dia de los Muertos (The Day of the Dead or All-Souls Day) with a buffet created by many of the visiting chefs. They prepared tamales, pipian, mole poblano, ceviche and tacos Dorados at the Guadalupe Center and brought the steaming trays of food over to the nightclub.

​Among the parties celebrities were noted author Jose "Pepe" Iturriaga, one of the great culinary writers in Mexico and the creator of the definitive guide to Mexican street food. But most of last night's guests were local restaurateurs, including El Patron owner Arturo Cabral and his mother Estela (right), Maria Chaurand of the popular La Fonda El Taquito, and Arturo Romo of the Taqueria Mexico mini-empire.

Today is the official launch of Tri-National Mexican Gastronomy Week, with several lectures by visiting chefs, including Alma Cervantes Cota from Morelia, Mexico and Felipe Gaytan from Dallas.

The conference continues through Wednesday afternoon, with most events taking place at the Guadalupe Center.

Judi's Bakery expands to a third location

​The North Kansas City-based Judi's Bakery, which also operates a location in the Legends complex in Wyandotte County, opened its third store a week ago in the Parkville Commons Shopping Center at the intersection of Highway 9 and Tom Watson Parkway. Like the Legends location, all the baked goods -- doughnuts, cookies, cakes, sweet rolls -- are delivered from the main commissary bakery on Burlington Avenue. 

Midtown's Russell Stover's Candy Kitchen bids a bittersweet farewell

​Saturday will be the final day for the sweet little Russell Stover store on 51st Street -- the 51st Street Candy Kitchen -- before the popular confectionary closes for good. It's been a neighborhood candy shop (it also sold ice cream and baked goods) since 2000. Now that the newly built Russell Stover in Fairway has opened at 2814 Shawnee Mission Parkway -- which also has ice cream and a candy kitchen and a lot more parking -- the modest shop near UMKC is giving it up. There won't be any big candy sales, according to the staff at the 51st Street location. "They're going to take all the inventory to the other stores in the metro," one manager said.

The 51st Street location, just around the corner from the Russell Stover corporate offices, was the last Russell Stover shop left in Kansas City's urban core. The other stores are in suburban areas. That wasn't always the case, though: Kansas City once had several Russell Stover shops, with their distinctive blue glass facades, including the little shop at Linwood and Forest:

 

Missouri Valley Special Collections, Kansas City Public Library

​ 

 ....which now looks like this:

​

​Here are some random newsy items from my reporter's notebook.

Fraud Alert

Overland Park Police say there's been "a cyber intrusion into the credit card server" at Llwelyn's Pub. The police have received several complaints of credit card fraud, so if you've charged anything at Llywelyn's in the last six months, you're urged to monitor your credit card statements carefully. If you suspect any unauthorized purchases, you can contact the police at 913-327-6855.

Now Hiring

The Drop Bar put out a notice via Twitter that the restaurant is hiring servers. If you want to submit an application you can stop by the restaurant or e-mail info@thedropbar.com for more information. Even if you don't get the job, you can try their bacon jam.

​If you don't clean your plate at Cafe Europa, you shouldn't feel guilty. The Crestwood restaurant has partnered with environmental consultant Earthscraps LLC to implement a composting and recycling program.   

"This is about getting into restaurants and addressing the issue of waste. Cafe Europa is an experiment. I'm hoping to take all my experience in the restaurant industry and passion for trash, and work to create a sustainable environment," says Jerame Gray, President of the Kansas City-based Earthscraps.

Gray launched his business in June after graduating from the University of Missouri-Kansas City with a Bachelor's degree in Urban Planning the previous December. If his name sounds familiar, he was a fixture behind the bar at Le Fou Frog for five years before his current bartending gig at the Blue Grotto.

But his entrepreneurial side pushed him to design a consulting firm to help businesses divert waste from landfills. And he found a restaurant willing to listen in Cafe Europa. Two months ago, the cafe retrofitted its kitchen with bins for composting material, glass and trash.  

The coyote howls no more in Leawood

​Well, it was a good try. Looking for a great idea to beef up profits at Yahooz, their Leawood "cowboy restaurant," PB&J restaurant group owners Paul Khoury and Bill Crooks closed the venue earlier this year and quickly re-invented the location as a new Coyote Grill.

The Coyote Grill was a popular casual dining spot serving Southwestern fare at the now-razed Mission Center. It was an early success for Khoury and Crooks, so the idea of reviving the concept in a location that already had Southwestern-style decor seemed like a natural, right? Wrong. Whatever charm the Coyote Grill had at Mission Center never made the transition to Leawood, where the food and service were hit-or-miss.

Khoury and Crooks closed the restaurant last Monday; a restaurant manager tells me the venue "has been turned into a catering and private dining facility."

​Score a victory for the Food and Drug Administration, as the food industry group behind those "Smart Choices" labels has decided to voluntarily halt promotions while the FDA seeks to better define nutritional claims in the marketplace.

In August, the FDA sent an open letter to the Smart Choices program -- a rebranding/marketing campaign underwritten by nine major corporations including Kellogg's and Kraft -- explaining that the agency would be monitoring the nutrition label campaign. One of the main issues appeared to be concerns over the potential placement of the label:

Since FDA's consumer research has found that people are less likely to check the Nutrition Facts label on the back or side panel of foods with front-of-pack labeling, it is essential that both the criteria and symbols used in front of package and shelf-labeling systems help consumers make healthy food choices.

The Smart Choices program drew fire in September for giving a green check-mark of approval to sugary cereals like Fruit Loops and Cocoa Puffs. In essence, nutritionists took issue with what they saw as a marketing campaign that was confusing consumers.