JoyceKC: Port Fonda to launch a Lawrence spot, more legal troubles for Blanc Burgers, Joy Wok to open in the Northland
▪ Port Fonda is coming to Lawrence.
Founder Patrick Ryan has signed a lease for a nearly 5,000-square-foot corner space at 900 New Hampshire St. A late summer opening is planned for the new location. Port Fonda will have some patio seating in front as well as in a back courtyard.
The menu will offer core items from the current Port Fonda menu, as well as some new items. Eventually it will offer breakfast, lunch and dinner daily, as well as Saturday and Sunday brunch.
Ryan opened Port Fonda as a food truck in 2010 and then added a brick-and-mortar restaurant in 2012. He also revamped Tengo Sed Cantina in the Power & Light District, designing a new menu and training the chefs there, and had planned to open The Town Co. restaurant in the new Woodside Village project in Westwood.
“We love the area but construction didn’t start as soon as I thought it would so we set other plans first,” Ryan said. “The neighborhoods we like, like Brookside, are too close, and the Plaza is really too close. We started going to Lawrence and the more I go the more I like it.”
▪ In 2014, Blanc Burgers + Bottles closed its Country Club Plaza restaurant and returned to Westport, where it got its start in 2008.
But Plaza landlords, Highwoods Properties, isn’t done with Blanc. Highwoods has filed suit against Blanc’s owners Ernesto Peralta and his wife, Jenifer Price, saying they would pay Highwoods $50,000 plus interest in monthly installments of $1,521.10 per a settlement agreement. Highwoods said that Peralta and Price have failed to pay the amounts required and currently owe $43,948.90.
“There is no sufficient reason justifying defendants Peralta and Price’s failure to pay the amounts owed pursuant to the settlement agreement,” Highwoods says in the suit. It also is asking for fees and costs associated with the suit, which was filed in early January in the circuit court of Jackson County.
Officials with Highwoods Properties declined to comment.
“I feel very confident that we will resolve this matter,” Peralta said.
Both Circle Restaurant Group of Kansas LLC and Circle Restaurant Group LLC, doing business as Blanc Burgers + Bottles, filed for Chapter 11 reorganization in September 2014.
Circle Restaurant Group of Kansas listed assets of $168,818 and liabilities of $202,942.66. Circle Restaurant Group listed assets of $348,664 and liabilities of $386,797.17.
Unsecured creditors include such local vendors as Farm to Market Bread Co. for $6,332.90 and for Scavuzzo’s Inc. for $8,076.52.
“We are under protection to reorganize and we feel very strongly that we are going to come out with a plan to move forward,” Peralta said.
▪ Overland Park’s Joy Wok Super Buffet & Hibachi Grill, a sushi, buffet and Asian-fusion restaurant, plans to open a Northland location in late March or early April. It is taking the former Golden Corral space at 8320 N. Church Road.
To reach Joyce Smith, call 816-234-4692 or send email to jsmith@kcstar.com. Follow her on Facebook and Twitter at JoyceKC.
This story was originally published February 10, 2015 at 5:00 AM with the headline "JoyceKC: Port Fonda to launch a Lawrence spot, more legal troubles for Blanc Burgers, Joy Wok to open in the Northland."