KC-area restaurants closed their dining rooms. Now some plan to reopen with a new look

Westport’s Bistro 303 has long wanted to redo its hardwood floors.

The restaurant and bar is open daily, so those planks were showing the wear and tear of all that foot traffic. But the owners also didn’t want to shut down for the three days they would need to repair, sand, stain and seal the floor.

Then came the stay-in-place order during the pandemic crisis.

“Now we have time to do things that we just never got to. Making bathroom doors so they can shut on their own, a new oven, new website,” said co-owner Jeffrey Schmitz. “I’m sanding down the brick on the patio and looking at new paint colors. And we were able to keep paying some of our employees who are helping out.”

Bistro 303 is not alone. Many restaurants are using the time to make improvements.

Ray Dunlea is freshening up his Conroy’s Public House restaurants in Leawood, Overland Park and Westwood with new paint and some new decorative touches.

In Waldo, Governor Stumpy’s Grill House considered a remodel over Labor Day weekend, then Thanksgiving. With the shelter-in-place extended into April, it was time. The owners ripped out the carpet and polished the concrete floor (circa 1940), painted the walls and ceiling, and are ordering new fabric for the booths and Formica for the west wall. The wall separating the bar from the dining room has been removed to open up the space and allow tables to be spread farther apart.

All along, Governor Stumpy’s still offered carry-out.

“We set up a triage area for to-go boxes,” said owner Kevin Ryan, who opened the restaurant in 1997. “But if we were going to shut down for a weekend to do it why not do it now? We did it from the top down. We have kind of just gone crazy.”