Magnolia’s reopens in an equally challenging — but much bigger — space
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Chef and restaurateur Shanita McAfee has never buckled under a challenge.
Three years ago, when McAfee — a former professional financial adviser — opened her first restaurant, Magnolia’s Catering & Cafe, in a cramped building at 2932 Cherry, there were naysayers who didn’t believe that contemporary and innovative adaptations of classic Southern American cuisine would fly in such an offbeat location. And the kitchen? It didn’t take a naysayer to see that it wasn’t much bigger than a walk-in closet.
Well, that first space was too small, the kitchen too hot and too cramped, and McAfee’s original menu too complicated. Still, those three years added up to something like a graduate degree in hospitality management, and now she’s ready to apply the tough lessons of that first Magnolia’s. Naturally, some naysayers remain. “South Kansas City?” another restaurateur told me with the shake of his head at the mention of McAfee’s new place. “No one wants to go out to eat in south Kansas City.” Guess what? When McAfee opens the 85-seat Magnolia’s Contemporary Southern Bistro, at 9916 Holmes, November 6 — having signed a lease this past summer to take over the former Groove Station Bar & Grill — she can count me in as someone ready to dine out in her zip code.
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McAfee and her family — including her husband, Mark Bryant Jr., and her sister, Chelle — clearly had a vision for the space, with its damaged concrete floors, buckling ceiling tiles and worn-out bar. Even when the space was a Sherlock’s Steak House, some 15 years ago, it had seen better days. Now, the family’s months of hard work — ripping up old carpeting, painting walls, updating the electrical system, repairing kitchen equipment — are about to pay off.
“We’ll start out doing breakfast and lunch business only at first,” McAfee says. “We’ll be open each day, Wednesday through Sunday, at 9 a.m., serving many of our most popular brunch dishes until 3 p.m. We’ll add dinner service later that week.”
That brunch menu is an a la carte thing out of the gate, centered on McAfee’s most popular offerings from her original restaurant: the red-velvet waffle, the sweet-potato pancakes, the Nutter Butter French toast. Obviously there will be biscuits and gravy. And the eggs Benedict here is a Southern thing, with sweet-potato biscuits and country ham brushed with a Dr Pepper glaze.
McAfee has covered the mismatched tables in the dining room with crisp linens and sheaths of white paper. Folded napkins enclose shiny new stainless flatware. The look is meant to send a message. “I want people — particularly in this neighborhood — to know that this isn’t going to be a bar or a nightclub that also serves food,” she says. “We’re not staying open late. We don’t have a dance floor. This is a place where people can dress up, if they want, and come in for a good meal. Almost 80 percent of the food coming out of this kitchen will be made from scratch.
“Only one of my cooks is coming with me from the old restaurant,” McAfee says. “He couldn’t get over the size of the new kitchen. He told me, ‘We won’t be bumping booty trying to navigate that tiny space with a four-burner range.’ I mean, how can you run a restaurant with four burners? We did, but it was hard. Now we have 12 burners, a flattop and two fryers.”
McAfee has also hired a local cook specifically to take over the restaurant’s dessert list, including chocolate soufflé cake with toasted-marshmallow ice cream, banana pudding with a bananas Foster pastry cream, and a fresh fruit cobbler of the day.
McAfee says she’s close to getting approval for a liquor license, beer (not to mention wine and cocktails) being a fine pairing with shrimp and grits.
