The Mixx founder plans new fast-casual restaurant for Prairie Village

Jo Marie Scaglia, founder and owner of The Mixx, came up with a new fast-casual dining restaurant four years ago and has been fine-tuning it since.

Now she plans to open the restaurant this fall in the Prairie Village Shopping Center. She signed a lease last Wednesday for 3,900 square feet in the former Bruce Smith Drugs space at 71st and Mission Road.

Scaglia opened The Mixx in the Plaza Colonnade, just south of the Country Club Plaza, in 2005. She later added locations in the Power & Light District and in Leawood. The Mixx offers gourmet and build-your-own salads with house-made dressings, sautéed pastas, wraps, sandwiches, quinoa bowls and protein plates, soups, baked goods, and desserts.

It uses local products by Farm to Market Bread Co., The Roasterie, Broadway Roasting Co. and Boulevard Brewing Co.

The new Prairie Village restaurant also will focus on fresh ingredients and made-from-scratch menu items for dine-in, take-out and grab-and-go, and it will be family-friendly. It will seat about 100 people inside and on a south side patio.

“Living in the Prairie Village area, I like to walk to the Village with my daughter, my dogs, meet my sister for morning coffee and run into good friends who I don’t always see on a day-to-day basis,” Scaglia said. “I want the new restaurant to be a gathering place for the community and families, as well as providing great food.”

Officials with Prairie Village Shopping Center didn’t return several requests for comment in recent days.

Bruce Smith Drugs closed in January after six decades in the shopping center.

This story was originally published February 23, 2017 at 8:57 AM with the headline "The Mixx founder plans new fast-casual restaurant for Prairie Village."