National pizza chain closes Leawood restaurant

Leawood’s California Pizza Kitchen quietly closed after business Sunday.

Management confirmed the restaurant would close that night and they have now posted a sign on the door saying, “The Park Place CPK is now closed. Thank you for allowing us to serve this community.”

Monday morning workers were filling trucks with inventory and equipment from the restaurant at 11655 Ash St.

Officials with California Pizza Kitchen couldn’t be reached for comment.

In a statement, Park Place officials said, “We are disappointed CPK is leaving the Kansas City market, however the location of this restaurant is outstanding and we are already negotiating with replacement tenants.”

It was in the mid-1990s, when Town Center Plaza said it had a lease for California Pizza Kitchen and it would be among its first tenants to open. But the pizza chain later said “various factors arose that did not fit into CPK’s site requirement criteria.”

In late 2007 it opened a 5,980-square-foot, freestanding restaurant at the south entrance to Park Place, just across 117th Street from Town Center Plaza. It was one of the first tenants to open in Park Place.

It had a location on the Country Club Plaza that closed in 2014 after more than a decade. Hogshead Kansas City is set to open in the space at 4743 Pennsylvania Ave. in mid-November.

It also has a “quick-service CPK” in Terminal B at the Kansas City International Airport, pre-security, as well as a kiosk for grab-and-go options.

This story was originally published October 9, 2017 at 12:24 PM with the headline "National pizza chain closes Leawood restaurant."