Cole Comfort
he news that yet another national restaurant chain, The Melting Pot (see review), had opened on the Country Club Plaza wasn’t a surprise to Steve Cole, the owner of Café Allegro (1815 West 39th Street). He’s the restaurateur who did more than anyone to make a stretch of West 39th Street the city’s restaurant row. “The Plaza,” Cole says, “is turning into a food court.”
Even when Cole opened Café Allegro in 1984, the Plaza was dominated by one restaurant chain — the locally owned Gilbert/Robinson. But there were also the independently owned and European-influenced Emile’s, Nabil’s and La Mediterranee and, for Chinese fare, the beloved House of Toy. And as far as dining in the Kansas City area, the Plaza was it: “We could do as many as 300 covers a night,” remembers restaurateur Tom Macaluso, who managed Nabil’s during that period. “And we were a 95-seat restaurant.”
There wasn’t a similarly popular restaurant community until Cole signed his lease for the location of a former pizza joint on 39th Street, across the street from a thrift shop and a block west of what was, he says, “a titty bar.”
“There were still hookers walking the street in those days, but I liked the neighborhood. And I liked the building,” Cole recalls. Members of the neighborhood association asked him not to use “bar,” “lounge” or “tavern” in the name of his business. “It didn’t matter,” Cole says. “I had already chosen my name.”
And for the last eighteen years, Café Allegro has been one of the city’s most-lauded restaurants, winning the first-place ranking in the Zagat Survey many years in a row before dropping this year to eighth place, behind Strouds, the American Restaurant, Plaza III, Starker’s Reserve, Stolen Grill, Metropolis and Ruth’s Christ Steak House.
That fall from grace, Cole says, is more of a surprise than a blow. What really hurt was losing his valet parking vendor last year. Café Allegro had provided valet parking to its customers since 1995 (and still offers a few reserved spaces in the lot behind the restaurant), but the parking company didn’t renew his contract, Cole says, “because they were having problems finding places to park the cars.”
Ironically, there was only “small, stinky gravel parking” when Cole opened Allegro. But the restaurant’s immediate success led others to move to the area, and parking is at a premium. Cole complains that his customers get annoyed if they see a drunk “peeing on a hubcap” in the back lot or, worse, are solicited. “A client interested in booking the restaurant for a corporate event was confronted by two panhandlers. That hurts the perception of the restaurant,” he says.
Another perception is that Allegro is the most expensive restaurant in town. “We’re not,” says Cole. “Over the last five years, I’ve been very price-conscious to make sure we’re competitive.” Café Allegro may be price-conscious, but 39th Street is still a long way from being a food court.
