Restaurant group closes Plaza III Steakhouse, Leawood Winstead’s for good, holds auction

Plaza III Steakhouse, which operated on the Country Club Plaza for decades before relocating to Overland Park, has shut its doors for good.

The restaurant temporarily closed during the coronavirus shutdown, but owner Haddad Restaurant Group Inc. confirmed that it is now closed for good. Officials with West Star Development, landlord for Plaza III Steakhouse at 12631 Metcalf Ave. in the Metcalf 127 shopping center, declined to comment.

And a sister restaurant, Winstead’s at 4971 W. 135th St. in Leawood, also is closed, Haddad said Wednesday morning.

With the Winstead’s closing, now only two are left — just east of the Plaza and in Overland Park. There once were more than a dozen Winstead’s restaurants.

The restaurant group held an auction of its Plaza III artwork Tuesday night, and Haddad said its landlord is keeping the equipment for another possible restaurant tenant.

“We anticipate the reopening to be slow and long-term,” said David Haddad, president of Haddad Restaurant Group. “We just don’t think it is in our best interest to stay and try to recover.”

Haddad Restaurant Group filed for bankruptcy reorganization in late February, listing assets of less than $50,000 and liabilities of more than $600,000, including more than $267,195 to the Plaza and $5,397 to KC Restaurant Week.

After operating on the Plaza since the early 1960s, Plaza III closed in March 2018 to make way for True Food Kitchen. By the end of the year it reopened in Overland Park. The 14,000-square-foot space had formerly been home to House of Denmark.

In a Plaza III art auction that ended Tuesday night, Asset Auctions Group sold 93 lots — from silk flowers selling for $9 to a 1910 A.D.M. Cooper oil painting (professionally restored) that sold for $18,250.

The Plaza III plaque on the front of the Plaza location? It sold for $1,750.