Kansas City restaurant closed this year. Now it’s changing name, adding dinner, moving
Justin Clark sure is loyal to Troost Avenue.
The restaurateur opened Urban Cafe at 4101 Troost in 2017, serving healthy food in a neighborhood in want of it. Eighteen months later, Urban Cafe moved to a larger space at 5500 Troost.
That location closed at the beginning of the year, but Clark will soon reopen Urban Cafe under a new name — Urban — about twenty blocks north, at the northwest corner of Armour Boulevard and Troost.
“It’ll be a somewhat different menu,” Clark said. “Urban Cafe was more cafe-style, with sandwiches and wraps. We’ll still be open for breakfast and lunch, but we’ll now be open for dinner with a full bar. It’ll be a little more elevated, with more composed dishes — kind of a fusion of New American cuisine.”
Clark earlier this year brought an Urban Cafe to Kansas City International Airport’s new terminal, which remains open. He said he closed the 5500 Troost location to focus on getting the airport location open, but also because of crime in the neighborhood.
“We had an armed robbery, a break-in, and a car that smashed up the side of our building,” he said.
Urban will be located at 3420 Troost, on the ground floor of The Roxford, a new eight-story building developed by Mac Properties. “It seems like a better fit,” Clark said.
Hours aren’t finalized yet, but he said Urban will likely serve six days a week from 8 a.m. to 9 or 10 p.m., and the plan is to be open sometime in March.
