Bloomsbury Bistro’s Cari Jo Cavalcante keeps besting the competition

• Cari Jo Cavalcante
• Bloomsbury Bistro’s Cari Jo Cavalcante has carved out her niche in the Mission Road Antique Mall.

In the genteel quiet of Bloomsbury Bistro, a former hard-nosed field hockey player is plating a bowl of soup for the last lunch table of the day. Her fingers are sure, and her feet are light, even now in her 50s. But after a decade of running her restaurant inside the Mission Road Antique Mall, owner and chef Cari Jo Cavalcante is proud that Prairie Village has come to know her softer side and her savory side and her pastry side.

“I’m unashamed to say that we are known as a ladies-that-lunch place. They’re the ones who have kept me in business all these years,” Cavalcante says, drinking a glass of water after the lunch shift in lieu of the standard post-game Gatorade.