Foo’d Me
My friend Ralph says that when he dies, he wants to be reincarnated as a rich Johnson County housewife. “I want to live in a big house in Leawood, get facials and manicures and aspire to nothing more in life than joining the Junior League.” That particular lifestyle would be my personal concept of hell, but it might be a more appealing prospect than returning to Earth as, say, a soft-shell crab.
Besides, I started having second thoughts about the life of a young Johnson County matron after flopping down on a comfortable sofa in Leawood’s seven-week-old Foo’s Fabulous Frozen Custard (3832 West 95th Street). It’s become kind of a hangout for not-so-desperate housewives.
My friend Ned was the first to tell me about the new place. He was dragged there one Saturday night by a chic Johnson County artist who wanted an apres-dinner treat, a shot of espresso poured over a scoop of rich frozen custard.
“It’s nothing like the Brookside Foo’s,” Ned reported back. “The front half is done in this neo-industrial décor with lacquered concrete floors and a really stark interior. And then you walk into the back, and it’s like a living room with sofas and a fireplace and chandeliers. The place was filled with pretty Johnson County housewives, sipping coffee and eating chocolates.”
Say what? I had to see the new place myself, so Ned and I stopped in on a Wednesday afternoon to marvel at this Foo’s of the Millennium, which serves the legendary Foo’s frozen custard along with Roasterie coffee drinks; it also boasts an illuminated display case filled with shiny, jewel-like Christopher Elbow chocolates.
This 2,500-square-foot space is the brainchild of Foo’s owner Betty Bremser and veteran restaurateur Jeff Stottle, now Bremser’s partner in franchising Foo’s. Stottle opened the Leawood location to position it as, he says, a “neighborhood coffee-and-dessert” place. He started opening at 6 a.m. to serve lattes and pastries from Le Monde Bakery, and the idea caught on quickly with the SUV-driving Estée Lauder set. I watched several women discussing charity functions and even caught up with an old friend, now a mom with toddlers, who apologized profusely that I was seeing her without makeup. “Who wears makeup to run out for frozen custard?” I wondered.
Then again, it’s Leawood.
