Kansas City company opens new JoCo restaurant. Lee’s Summit location coming in 2021
When the first Red Door Woodfired Grill opened in Leawood in 2013, it aimed to be “the best little upscale neighborhood joint.”
The concept was so well-honed that after it expanded to Brookside, some customers thought it was a chain.
It’s on its way to becoming one.
It has since opened locations in Liberty and Overland Park. Its new restaurant in Lenexa’s Sonoma Plaza opened Dec. 8 — the first in a building it owns, built from the ground up, and it will be the prototype going forward. It features an open bar, private upstairs dining room, second story mezzanine, and a large patio overlooking a pond with a fountain.
It plans another location under a similar design for the Streets of West Pryor in Lee’s Summit, scheduled to open in late fall 2021.
“We don’t want to be a cookie-cutter type chain but it is beneficial when managers go from one location to another that the layout is the same,” said Red Door founder and owner Gary Zancanelli.
Red Door Woodfired Grill also is in talks for a restaurant in the redeveloped Kansas City International Airport, put on hold because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Zancanelli spends time in Arizona during the winter and sees it as an attractive market that could be Red Door’s first expansion outside of Kansas City.
“The goal is to develop a brand that can go to another market. That you have really good hiring and training systems, that you can bring someone in and they understand the Red Door culture,” Zancanelli said. ”We have very passionate people who really strive to get better each and every day. To make Red Door the best little upscale neighborhood joint.”
Menu items include charred wood-fired wings, raspberry coconut chicken salad, specialty burgers, chicken enchiladas, meatloaf, Cajun pasta, KC strip, grilled salmon, and skillet bourbon pecan pie.
The brunch menu has such items as chicken and waffles, prime rib hash, biscuit beignets and a vegetable frittata.
The new Red Door Woodfired Grill is at 15918 W. 88th St. in Lenexa. The 6,498-square-foot space can seat up to 140 people in the dining room, 20 in the bar area, and 40 on the patio. But currently COVID-19 capacity restrictions are in place and customers are required to wear a mask. It also offers carryout and curbside delivery.
It serves lunch and dinner daily, and on Saturdays and Sundays also offers a brunch menu from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. During happy hour, from 3 to 6 p.m. weekdays, it will have half-price drinks and discounted food items such as its barbecue chicken sliders and carne asada tacos.
It also has $5 classic burgers on Monday, jalapeno-dipped fried chicken (marinated for four days) on Thursdays, and whiskey-soaked wood-fired prime rib Fridays through Sundays. Wine bottles are half off on Sundays.
This story was originally published December 8, 2020 at 1:31 PM.