There’s still a soul-food buffet at Papa Lew’s Soul Delicious
I was heartbroken last month when I heard that one of my favorite buffets in the city, the original Peachtree Buffet on Eastwood Trafficway, had closed. (A smaller full-service Peachtree restaurant now operates in the same complex.) There were once several first-rate soul-food buffet restaurants in Kansas City with the Willis family’s Peachtree as the ne plus ultra of the group, which included the now-defunct Three Friends restaurant on Prospect and the more intimate but congenial Papa Lew’s Soul Delicious Foods.
I’m happy to report that Papa Lew’s Soul Delicious, which turns 30 years old next year, is very much alive and well at 2128 East 12th Street. The restaurant is still family-owned; the namesake, Lewis Lyman Sr., passed away in 1992, and his widow, Dorris, and son, Marvin, have been running the venue since, moving it from 18th Street to the current location in 2004.
And, yes, business at Papa Lew’s has increased since the Peachtree Buffet stopped operating as a buffet.
