Save this Restaurant (Whorehouse)!

By CHARLES FERRUZZA

I’ve lost track of how many ill-fated restaurants have come and gone at 2801 Southwest Boulevard.

The best-known was probably El Patio Restaurant, operated by the legendary restaurateur Jose “Don Pepe” Hernandez for two years until 2002. The two-story building has a rich history: In the early 20th Century it was a saloon operated by a Kansas City policeman named Noah Beery who had three sons: William, Wallace (who was so fat that his friends called him “Jumbo”) and Noah. All three boys went on to become performers. Wallace ran off to join the circus at age 16, later did a series of silent films in drag (playing a Swedish maid named “Sweedie”), briefly married actress Gloria Swanson – her memories of their wedding night suggest that he was a really lousy lover – and in the 1930s became one of the biggest movie stars at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, where he was frequently teamed with another Kansas City native, Jean Harlow, in films like The Secret Six.