A ramen revolution, a reincarnated Golden Ox and the rest of the top restaurant stories of 2015

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What were people talking about in Kansas City’s restaurant scene in 2015?

I can name quite a few things. Ramen. Bakeries. Pizza. Comeback stories. Barbecue.

But ramen, that dish of kinky Japanese noodles in a full-bodied broth, was the hottest restaurant story of 2015. Why? Kansas City has seen the start of a ramen revolution.

The Columbus Park Ramen Shop — from Happy Gillis Café & Hangout owners Josh and Abbey-Jo Eans — opened in October, and three more ramen venues are slated for the coming year, including Il Lazzarone owner Erik Borger’s Komatsu (at 3951 Broadway) and chef Patrick Curtis’ Shio Noodle (at 3605 Broadway). A ramen restaurant proposed by Summit Grill & Bar owners Andy Lock and Domhnall Molloy is in the planning stages.

But not every new restaurant idea shakes up the town. Old restaurants sometimes die and they’re frequently reincarnated, sometimes with sad results. (There are exceptions to this rule: the Corner Restaurant and Michael Forbes Bar & Grille; the latter reopened in October, five months after a serious fire.) And that brings us to the Golden Ox.

At the end of 2014, The Pitch called the closing of the 65-year-old Golden Ox steakhouse “the local restaurant story of the year.”

Now that 2015 is drawing to a close, the news that the iconic steak-and-spud restaurant will reopen in 2016 (much smaller and owned and operated by Voltaire proprietors Jill Myers and Wes Gartner) is a top restaurant topic. Gartner and Myers say that when they open the doors to 1600 Genessee next September (in time for the 2016 American Royal), it will be a very different steakhouse from the Ox in its depressing final days — and that’s a hopeful sign.

Kansas City’s downtown has lost several classic steak restaurants over the last decade — the Hereford House, Benton’s Chop House, the Savoy Grill (which reportedly will reopen, but not as a steakhouse) — and needs an old-school replacement, although the 10-month-old Cleaver & Cork, in the Power & Light District, is a contender.

Another old-school restaurant, the 36-year-old EBT — famous for its Continental cuisine and tableside Caesar salads — was another loss to the local restaurant landscape. It’s unlikely that this restaurant, which paid homage to both the long-razed Emery Bird Thayer department store and a long-outdated style of dining, will ever return in any fashion.

But two popular dining venues that were briefly closed for part of the year did return. Leslie Stockard thought that she had sold her Waldo bruncheonette, the Classic Cookie, in March, but she resumed ownership eight months later. Her longtime customers were ecstatic.

So were fans of chef Shanita McAfee Bryant’s tiny Magnolia’s Contemporary Southern Bistro (at 2932 Cherry), which closed at the beginning of the year and recently reopened in a much larger space (at 9916 Holmes), where McAfee Bryant serves her most popular dishes: red-velvet waffles, sweet-potato pancakes, Nutter Butter French toast. I had one of my favorite brunches of 2015 in her spacious new dining room.

What about the restaurants that really closed for good in 2015? To name a few: Sutera’s Italian Restaurant in Westwood, the Thai Place in Westport, Saigon 39 on 39th Street, Morton’s Grille on the Country Club Plaza (after a nine-month run), Huddle House (3959 Broadway), Tengo Sed Cantina (1323 Walnut), Woodswether Café (1414 West Ninth Street), and Sosa’s 39th Street Diner (3906 Waddell).

Some of those addresses remain vacant. Others were quickly snapped up by enterprising restaurateurs. Alan Gaylin of Bread & Butter Concepts did an impressive refurbishing of the former Ingredient on the Plaza (4807 Jefferson) to create his Spanish-influenced República, serving tapas and paella. Eddie Crane had his own vision for the Haus space, creating a neighborhood saloon he named Ollie’s Local. The Local Pig location is no longer a restaurant but a bar called Throwback, with console video games.

Another Westport venue that wasn’t empty long was 4120 Pennsylvania, last occupied by a short-lived outpost of Blanc Burgers + Bottles. In a surprisingly fast turnaround, it become a Dempsey’s Burger Pub. Farther north, the former Bulldog Restaurant & Bar, at 17th Street and Main, was transformed into a café and self-service beer saloon called the Ruins.

And a long-vacant downtown venue — 100 East Seventh Street, last occupied by Arun Thai Place five years ago — became the Homesteader Café this past fall.

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Two new downtown arcade lounges — Tapcade and Up-Down — offer hand-held victuals for patrons wanting to nosh as they play. Up-Down (in the former Hamburger Mary’s spot in the Crossroads that moved to the Uptown Theater a year ago) serves pizza by the slice. Tapcade serves wraps, wings and fries.

Surprises in 2015: After nearly four decades, IHOP returned to midtown (near KU Medical Center, at 3928 Rainbow); a cheesecake bake shop opened on Troost (Whimsy Cheesecakes in the Flavor Trade Building, at 3000 Troost); communal dining came to Zona Rosa with the independently owned Q Hot Pot (8610 Northwest Prairie View Road); and Vandal’s Punk Rock Club (3740 Broadway) became Woody’s Classic Sports Pub, with a damn good menu.

And after I fretted over one of my favorite burger joints for more than nine months, the beloved LC’s Hamburgers in the Northland, reopened — finally! — last March after a 2014 fire closed it for nearly a year.

Pizza? There’s always a place for new pizzerias in the metro, and this year’s bounty of pie shops included two fast-serve restaurants: Pizzeria Locale in Waldo (in partnership with the Chipotle chain) and the independently owned Topp’d, at 3934 Rainbow, the brainchild of pizzeria veteran Chad Talbott.

The biggest pizza news of the year was the opening of Erik Borger’s Il Lazzarone in the River Market. Borger’s first pizzeria of that name, in St. Joseph, is the only pizzeria in the state of Missouri to be officially authenticated as Neapolitan pizza by the American Delegation of the Associazione Verace Pizza Napoletana. Borger is attempting to get the same rare imprimatur for the Kansas City restaurant.

Papa Keno’s returned to the same location in Westport that it had abandoned in 2008 — the short-lived trattoria, the Boot, briefly occupied the space until Papa Keno’s took over the lease again.

Although Grimaldi’s Pizzeria was founded in Brooklyn in 1990, the popular coal-fired pizza shop was sold to different owners, who turned the business into a national chain. The first outpost in the area opened recently in the Prairiefire complex (at 5601 West 135th Street), in Overland Park.

The former Next Door Pizza space in Lee’s Summit was revamped as the Long-Bell Pizza Co. by chefs Jayson Eggers and Aaron Mulder. Arris’ Pizza, a popular pizza restaurant in Jefferson City that has traditionally served a Greek-influenced pie, finally opened a location in the metro last year, taking over a space at 12812 West 87th Street Parkway, in Lenexa.

It was a very sweet year for bakeries, with the addition of Ashleigh’s Bake Shop and the Doughnut Lounge in Westport, Heirloom Bakery & Hearth (and the soon-to-open UnBakery & Juicery) in east Brookside, Amore Dolci Bakery in midtown, and the rustic Hearth Bread Co. in Weston.

On a bittersweet note, sisters Vicki and Carol LaBruzzo are looking for an owner to take over their busy LaBruzzo’s Sweet Oven, in the River Market. “We’re tired,” Carol LaBruzzo tells me. “We can’t keep up this pace anymore.”

For every restaurant that closed in 2015, it seemed that a new one popped up, and all over the area. These included Beaches Cantina near the airport; Plate in east Brookside; Espirito Do Sol in south Johnson County; Standard Pour in Westport; Mi Asia Bistro downtown (in the long-vacant Willy’s space); chef Derek Nacey’s Blvd Tavern in the Crossroads; and Howard’s Grocery, Café & Catering in the Crossroads.

The R Bar & Patio in Lawrence (the former Jet Lag Lounge) added a chef, Brian Reeves, to the staff, and he took food service here to the stratosphere — nothing too complicated but simply delicious, especially the Maryland crab cakes.

Lawrence also got its own Port Fonda, a spacious outpost of Westport’s beloved cantina. And Massachusetts Street saw the much-awaited reopening of Meg Heriford’s Ladybird Diner, which was shuttered for five months after a fire broke out in a barbecue restaurant next door.

Another terrific addition to Lawrence’s culinary community: 1900 Barker Bakery Café, known for its selection of crusty breads and pastries, is a fine place for a cup of coffee and fresh-fruit galettes.

Kansas City is still a barbecue town, and the 2015 smoke shacks include KC’s Smokehouse Pub (in the former Swagger location in Waldo (8431 Waldo), a new and much-awaited downtown location for the Blue Springs–based Plowboys Barbeque, and Crazy Good Eats (the maker of The Pitch‘s Best Barbecue Pork Sandwich of 2015) in Olathe.

Was 2015 a good year for dining in Kansas City? I’d say it was a very, very good year.