The long wait is over: First Kansas City area Whataburger to open Monday

Plans for a Lee’s Summit Whataburger in June 2020 were the first confirmation that the beloved Texas-based chain was coming to the metro.

Now the Lee’s Summit Chamber of Commerce said that location, at 1450 N.E. Douglas St., is scheduled to open Monday — the first of many planned for the metro.

“We’re excited to welcome Whataburger into the Lee’s Summit community,” said Jordan Straits, director of marketing and communications for the chamber. “It is very exciting to have the first Whataburger in the Kansas City area.”

Whataburger officials were not immediately available to confirm the Lee’s Summit opening.

An Independence location, at 18811 E. Valley View Parkway, is scheduled to open later this month, followed by Blue Springs, and south Overland Park.

Area locations in the works for 2022 are in the Northland, Overland Park and Raymore.

In late 2018, after the burger chain offered to send Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes some of his favorite ketchup and a T-shirt, he tweeted back, “I just want a store in Kansas City!”

Now Mahomes, who grew up in Texas, also is part of a franchise group that plans to open 30 locations from Wichita to St. Joseph. But the group, KMO Burger, plans to concentrate on the metro.

Whataburger was founded by Harmon Dobson in 1950, according to the company’s website. He had an idea, an eatery that would “serve a burger so big that it took two hands to hold, and so good that after a single bite customers couldn’t help but exclaim, ‘What a burger!’”

Items are made to order, and it uses 100% beef and a 5-inch bun.

The menu also includes mushroom Swiss burgers, patty melts, a honey barbecue chicken strip sandwich, a sweet and spicy bacon burger, fish and chicken sandwiches, salads, and breakfast items such as a honey butter chicken biscuit, pancake platter and taquitos with cheese. Restaurants are open 24 hours a day, seven days a week.