Pizza Bella still open, despite its own Web site

Everyone’s still wondering what’s going on with Rob Dalzell’s restaurants. Last week’s news about the closing of 1924 Main brought questions about the fate of Pizza Bella and Souperman, but Dalzell hasn’t been answering his phone or returning messages.

A Fat City reader e-mailed us this morning to say that the Pizza Bella Web site is now announcing that the restaurant is “temporarily closed.” But the restaurant is open for lunch today: “I don’t know what’s going on with that Web site,” said server Zach Shipley. “I spoke with [co-owner] Margarita Dalzell and she’s going to see about fixing it.”

Two nights ago I happened to be driving by 18th and Baltimore and looked into the big picture windows. The dining room was completely empty at 8 p.m., with a forlorn-looking pizza chef in a white jacket standing by one of the wood-burning ovens, its embers glowing as he looked out at the empty tables. It was a sad scene.

The gourmet pizza bistro on Baltimore appears to be the last remaining restaurant in Dalzell’s once-impressive culinary empire which included, at its apex, 1924 Main, Souperman, Yummo Frozen Yogurt and Chefburger.

The phone at Souperman is disconnected. Chefburger was recently taken over by its managers, and even more recently closed down by the Kansas City Health department after a complaint.

Dalzell’s shifting fortunes have been the talk of the restaurant community over the last month, particularly since the Kansas City Star‘s story on the firing of Karen Pletz, president of the University of Medicine and Biosciences. Rob Dalzell’s father, Douglas Dalzell, was executive vice-president for institutional development there and was also dismissed from his $437,000 position; the Star also reported that Douglas Dalzell had put Rob’s wife Margarita on the university payroll and that “a university employee kept the books for the Dalzell enterprise on an office computer.” Margarita Dalzell has also reportedly lost her position at the university.