Openings and closings: Remedy gets a redo, Bridger’s Bottle Shop changes, Boozefish goes dark, and more
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When a remedy won’t cure an ailing bar and grill, it’s time to try a different cure. That’s the story with Remedy Food + Drink, the sunny, glass-walled venue at 500 West 75th Street, in Waldo. The former Kennedy’s Bar & Grill got a significant makeover in 2012, transforming into Remedy. It developed a sophisticated new menu and hired name-brand chef Max Watson, formerly of the Rieger Hotel Grill & Exchange. (Watson left after a year, and his successors didn’t last, either.)
Last week, two former McCormick & Schmick’s veterans — manager Andy Lock and chef Domhnall Molloy — signed a lease on the property. In 2013, Lock and Molloy turned the failing Rumor’s Steakhouse, in Lee’s Summit into the Summit Grill & Bar. They hope to do the same with Remedy, reopening in mid-October as the Summit Grill & Bar Kansas City, a smaller version of the Lee’s Summit restaurant, after an interior makeover.
The second Summit restaurant plans to serve a similar menu of hand-cut steaks, seafood, pork chops and pot roast. Molloy, who lives in Waldo, will oversee the 75th Street restaurant, while Lock handles day-to-day operations in Lee’s Summit.
Another saloon restaurant getting a shot of adrenaline is Bridger’s Bottle Shop, the five-month-old beer emporium and sandwich lab in the former America’s Pub space at 510 Westport Road. Celebrity butcher Alex Pope joined forces with Bottle Shop founders Phil Theis, Aaron Beatty and Eric Flanagan to install, in the center of the beer shop, Preservation Market, a fast-casual restaurant serving sandwiches, salads, a charcuterie plate and daily specials.
Last week, Pope and his staff took over the management of the entire operation, promoting Adam Northcraft to general manager and making plans to expand the menu, reduce beer prices and offer table service.
A few blocks away, restaurateur Maija Diethelm-Floyd closed her 13-year-old Boozefish Wine Bar, at 1511 Westport Road, as she continued negotiating with a buyer for the bistro. Diethelm-Floyd says she and her husband will be living in Aix-en-Provence, in France, by the end of the year.
Another Westport business, Keith Buchanan’s cozy Teahouse & Coffeepot, at 4309 Jefferson, closed after four years and after serving its last Drunken Rum Raisin scone. Other notable closings over the summer: Open Fire Wood Burning Pizza (3951 Broadway), Ubuntu Café (4327 Troost), Kansas Town (1403 West 39th Street), and Nica’s Lagniappe Cajun Kitchen (320 Southwest Boulevard). The landlords of those buildings require a very simple cure: new tenants.
