3 new restaurants coming to downtown Olathe: BBQ, pickleball, comfort food & pizza
The Olathe Chamber of Commerce announced the addition of three popular Kansas City area restaurants as part of an ongoing effort by the city of Olathe to revitalize its downtown.
Char Bar will open its largest concept yet — offering pickleball and barbecue menu items — at 200 W. Santa Fe. in late 2025 or early 2026.
Nearby, American comfort food restaurant Third Street Social will open its fourth location at 135 S. Kansas Ave. sometime in 2025.
And, as previously reported by The Star, Pizza 51 is also set to open at 200 S. Kansas Ave., in an old auto shop. Its projected opening date is spring 2025.
Char Bar’s new spot, which will be called Char Bar Smoked Meats & Pickleball, will feature seven pickleball courts, lawn games and a two-story fire pit. It will open where the old Olathe Fire Station once stood.
Char Bar opened in Westport at 4050 Pennsylvania Ave. in 2014. Its menu includes burnt ends, ribs and cornbread muffins. Last year, it opened a Parkville spot at 15348 Old Town Drive.
Third Street Social first opened in Lee’s Summit in 2016, offering burgers, brunch, salmon, prime rib and more. Its website advertises it as a local restaurant with a “big city feel.” The restaurant’s Northland spot opened earlier this year at 410 N.W. Legacy Drive.
“Downtown Olathe offers the chance to be pioneers in a rapidly growing area with tremendous potential,” Third Street Social co-owner Andy Lock said in a media release. “Its well-developed infrastructure, combined with a thriving nearby residential community, makes it the perfect setting for our expansion.”
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Jason Pryor, owner of Pizza 51 also expressed excitement about his future in downtown Olathe in a release.
“It’s the experience and that atmosphere that we pride ourselves in and that is what makes it unique,” he said. “Downtown Olathe has character, and this building has that old-school style and design. The building has character. You sit outside, relax, have a slice of pizza and watch the trains go by.”
For years, Olathe has been working to turn its somewhat quiet downtown area into a booming entertainment district.
Following the opening of the $193 million Johnson County District Courthouse in 2021, the city and county have been working to improve Johnson County Square, the public space between the Johnson County Administration Building and the courthouse. A multipurpose stage and additional seating have been added in the past few years.
Farther north, Olathe is looking to open a major entertainment district with a theme park and hockey arena at 119th Street and Renner Boulevard.
Loretto Properties, the company of Lamar Hunt Jr., owner of the Kansas City Mavericks hockey team is heading up the $300 million project. Lamar Hunt Sr. founded the Worlds of Fun amusement park in Kansas City in the early 1970s.