Bleu Burgers’ Tony Olson is seriously changing things at Chubby’s, Longbranch

There are a lot of things you could say – good and scathing – about Chubby’s, the 24-hour diner at 3756 Broadway, but I had never considered using the words gracious service before. This is, after all, no place for the genteel, particularly after 1 a.m. 

While a friend and I were waiting for cheeseburgers last Friday night, our server stopped by our table – without a word and totally inexplicably – and dropped off a plate of two coaster-sized iced cinnamon rolls. We eyed the rolls warily. “Did you order those?” asked my friend.

No, since I don’t crave breakfast pastries with my burgers (chocolate cream pie is another story entirely). We decided that the waitress had dropped the rolls off by mistake. But when, after five or six minutes, she didn’t return for them, we ate them. Nothing was said. They weren’t on the bill.

But I couldn’t resist calling Tony Olson, the 33-year-old restaurateur who took over the operation of the midtown diner in 2012. “What’s the story with the cinnamon rolls?” I asked Olson.

“They are complimentary, if you’re ordering food, and 75 cents if you just want to come in for a cup of coffee,” Olson says. “The cinnamon rolls are a big part of the success of our diner, Neighborhood Cafe, in Lee’s Summit, so we decided to roll the concept out at Chubby’s two months ago.”

Olson says he wasn’t sure how the Chubby’s clientele would respond, but he has met with resounding success. Why not? Chubby’s never had the reputation of giving anything away for free.

“We’re going to make Chubby’s an all-scratch restaurant, like Neighborhood Cafe,” Olson says. “We’ll start making our own pies at Chubby’s next. I’ve been having the kitchen crew training with our baker, Vicky Etheridge. They’ve got the cinnamon rolls down pretty well, so we’ll try pies in the next few months.”

Olson made the decision to purchase Chubby’s because of the success he has had with the smaller, less raucous Neighborhood Cafe: “Chubby’s is an iconic restaurant name in Kansas City,” Olson says, “with a long history. I liked to eat there when I was a student at UMKC. I felt it fit really well with what we’re doing at Neighborhood Cafe.”

Chubby’s isn’t Tony Olson’s only restaurant reclamation project: In 2011, Olson purchased the Lenexa outpost of the once-popular Longbranch Saloon (famous in the 1980s for its sassy servers and cheap steaks). After giving the suburban venue a thorough cleaning, he overhauled the menu, returning to cutting the steaks in-house and adding several new dinner specials.There are still modestly priced premium Black Angus steaks (a 12-ounce Kansas City strip is $20 and includes a side and soup or salad) and a Tuesday-night steak special (a 16-ounce T-bone and baked potato for $16). A new Longbranch menu was introduced last night and features Caribbean jerk chicken, house-made pulled pork , a bacon-wrapped sirloin, and a Cajun rib-eye.

“We also make our own bread pudding and cheesecakes,” Olson says.

Olson hired former Murray’s Tables and Taps chef Nathan Buckley in 2012 to oversee the menu planning and kitchen staff of all his restaurants, now including the four-month old Bleu Burger in Lee’s Summit.

But don’t expect to see any of that venue’s stuffed burgers at Chubby’s, Olson says. “They’re very labor-intensive,” he says. “And Chubby’s has its own signature burgers.”