Eden Alley’s Sandi Corder-Clootz tells her veggie tales

Kansas Citians don’t raise their daughters to grow up to be vegetarians. Or at least they didn’t when Sandi Corder-Clootz was a teenager listening to Meat Is Murder by the Smiths.

The chef and co-owner of Eden Alley grew up in meat-and-potatoes Kansas City, except she wanted to eat only the potatoes. 

“If you were a vegetarian, you were the odd one in the family,” Corder-Clootz says. “You might still be.”

It wasn’t hard for Corder-Clootz to give up meat because she never felt that attached to it in the first place — the taste and texture were unappealing. But it was the realization of what she was eating that had the biggest impact. 

“I remember I was chewing on a chicken leg when I got down to the bone. And then I thought, This is a leg,” Corder-Clootz says. 

The restaurant has evolved, and so have her views on vegetarianism. It’s the kind of spot that she hoped for when she was 13 years old and riding the bus to Amber Waves — a short-lived macrobiotic restaurant in the city. 

“Vegetarian restaurants would come and go. It was hard to find a place to eat,” Corder-Clootz says.

There was no place like Eden Alley, which has now been on the Plaza for the past 17 years — its unofficial anniversary is Monday, April 4. She moved to midtown from Northeast KC when she was 18, getting a job as a hostess at Jenny’s Italian Restaurant. When they found out that she could type, Corder-Clootz began working in the back office, doing payroll and invoicing for the restaurant. Her next job didn’t bring her closer to the kitchen, but she began learning about ingredients. She managed the cheese case in a Price Chopper deli section. When the clutch on her Chevette gave out, she gave notice, because she didn’t have to drive to Californos in Westport, where she had been working part time. The restaurant needed kitchen help, and she was eager to learn.

It was there that she met Monica Jones, her original partner in Eden Alley. The duo launched a catering service, Eloquent Jesters. The pair managed the catering operations for Daily Bread — a vegetarian enclave run by two women. It was exactly the kind of daily-specials-on-a-chalkboard restaurant that Jones and Corder-Clootz wanted to run. And when Unity Temple on the Plaza was looking for a coffee shop and concessions partner, the idea of striking out on their own suddenly seemed a lot more feasible.

“It was all about the ethical part of being a vegetarian, thinking about where and how food is grown and how long it takes to get to us,” Corder-Clootz says.  

Eden Alley launched in April 1994, with seating for 40 people. Corder-Clootz would cook on the line, while Jones served and managed the front of the house. After lunch, the pair would wash the dishes and mop the floors. Their first server was one of their best customers. 

“He said, ‘You guys look like you could use some help.’ Stephen [Page] was with us for five and a half years. He was also one of the groomsman in my wedding,” Corder-Clootz says. 

The original Eden Alley chalkboard menu featured falafel and a veggie burger, both of which have become Eden Alley standards. The best-sellers evolved into a printed menu, and the dining room kept expanding — Eden Alley now seats 132 people. In 2001, Corder-Clootz bought out Jones and decided to continue running Eden Alley by herself. She got a new partner and general manager when she married Greg Clootz. And five years ago, Eden Alley stopped serving fish on Friday nights and became fully vegetarian. “I want to be here. I want to continue to exist for the people that rely on us and want to know that there’s a vegetarian restaurant they can go to,” Corder-Clootz says.

Because somewhere out there in Kansas City is a little girl who just told her mama that she wants to be a vegetarian.