Award-winning Bluestem restaurant shutting down soon in Kansas City’s Westport

Westport’s award winning Bluestem restaurant will be closing.

Owners Colby and Megan Garrelts opened the restaurant at 900 Westport Road in 2004.

“We were ready. We knew at the beginning of the year we weren’t going to sign a new lease and then COVID happened and it was a no-brainer,” Colby Garrelts said. “We thought we had an exposed employee a couple of weeks ago and closed for the whole weekend. We didn’t, but a small restaurant like this, we could be done for weeks if something like that happened.”

Food & Wine Magazine honored Bluestem with a Best New Chef award in 2005. The couple expanded with a lounge next door in 2006. Colby Garrelts also received a Best Chef Midwest award from the James Beard Foundation in 2013 and Bluestem had a major remodel that year. They also have a Bluestem cookbook.

“We’re going to miss it,” he said. “But food at that level, service at that level, it’s a lot of hard work. I’m an older man now. I was 28 and Megan was 23 when we opened. At least we can walk away with our heads held high.”

The Garrelts confirmed the closing in a Facebook post: “After 17 wonderful years, it is with a heavy heart that we announce that we will be serving guests at Bluestem for the last time on Saturday, December 19th.”

They want to spend more time with their children and focus on their Rye restaurants on the Country Club Plaza and in Leawood, as well as explore possible new projects.

They have 15 employees who were offered positions at the other restaurants.

This story was originally published November 24, 2020 at 4:36 PM.